Summing Up

He is a man of extraordinary fate and multifaceted talent. He is a magnificent prose writer, playwright, and comedian, and concurrently a secret agent of British intelligence. He is Somerset Maugham. The amazing life of the great writer, told by himself, is a plot that is in many ways more interesting than his best novels. In autobiographical notes, the master sums up his creative path, formulates his philosophical credo, and reveals the secrets of literary mastery. Some critics called this book a manifesto of a finished cynic, while others considered it the most sincere of Maugham's works, but the debates surrounding it continue to this day.