Maugham completed the writing of LIZA OF LAMBETH during his final year of medical school. The publication of this novel brought him enough money and notoriety that he decided to abandon thoughts of a career as a doctor (he qualified but never practiced) and instead make his way as a full-time writer. The novel itself is the story of a young girl, Liza, living in the Lambeth slums of London. The details of the novel are rich and evocative, much of the material inspired by the people and events Maugham encountered while he was a medical student practicing mid-wifery in the same area.

Author Biography

William Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a physician. The initial run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he traveled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.