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About the Book:

For much of his long life — he lived to be over ninety — W. Somerset Maugham was the most famous writer in the world. His plays, short stories and novels sold in their millions; his work on stage, page and screen drew huge audiences. He remains the English writer most adapted for film and television. His novel Theatre is the basis of Being Julia, a major worldwide movie released in 2004 starring Annette Benning and Jeremy Irons.

Theatre is set in the pre-World War II era, when W. Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward ruled the London stage. Julia Lambert is in her prime, the greatest actress in England. On stage she is a true professional, in full possession of her emotions. Off stage, however, she is bored with her husband, less disciplined about her behaviour. She is at first amused by the attentions of a shy but ambitious young fan, then thrilled by his persistence — and at last wildly but dangerously in love.

Although W. Somerset Maugham is most celebrated as a novelist and short-story writer, it was as a playwright that he first knew success. His novel Theatre is both a tribute to a world from which he had retired and a persuasive testimony to his enthusiasm for drama and the stage.

What people say:

"Brilliant. The sheer, unmatched skill with which Mr. Maugham has told his tale would fill any novelist with envy." — Chicago Tribune

"The modern writer who has influenced me the most." — George Orwell

About the Author:

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was famous as a dramatist before he was known everywhere for his superb short stories and for his novels, the immensely acclaimed, Of Human Bondage, becoming one of the most widely read works of fiction of the twentieth century. At his peak, four of his plays were playing in London's West End at the same time, a feat that would be unheard of today. His witty, intelligent and politically minded work competed with his contemporary Noel Coward, and was in the tradition of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.