Of Human Bondage

William Somerset Maugham, (25 January 1874 - 16 December 1965) 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. "e;Of Human Bondage"e; (1915) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "e;This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention."e;[1] Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a section of Spinoza's Ethics. The Modern Library ranked Of Human Bondage No. 66 on its list of the 100 best eng-language novels of the 20th century. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)