The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magician, by Somerset Maugham

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Title: The Magician

Author: Somerset Maugham

Release Date: December 4, 2004 [EBook #14257]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Magician

A NOVEL By SOMERSET MAUGHAM

TOGETHER WITH A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

1908

A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In 1897, after spending five years at St Thomas's Hospital I passed the
examinations which enabled me to practise medicine. While still a medical
student I had published a novel called _Liza of Lambeth_ which caused a
mild sensation, and on the strength of that I rashly decided to abandon
doctoring and earn my living as a writer; so, as soon as I was
'qualified', I set out for Spain and spent the best part of a year in
Seville. I amused myself hugely and wrote a bad novel. Then I returned to
London and, with a friend of my own age, took and furnished a small flat
near Victoria Station. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat
neat and tidy. My friend was at the Bar, and so I had the day (and the
flat) to myself and my work. During the next six years I wrote several
novels and a number of plays. Only one of these novels had any success,
but even that failed to make the stir that my first one had made. I could
get no manager to take my plays. At last, in desperation, I sent one,
which I called _A Man of Honour_, to the Stage Society, which gave two
performances, one on Sunday night, another on Monday afternoon, of plays
which, unsuitable for the commercial theatre, were considered of
sufficient merit to please an intellectual audience. As every one knows,
it was the Stage Society that produced the early plays of Bernard Shaw.
The committee accepted _A Man of Honour_, and W.L. Courtney, who was a
member of it, thought well enough of my crude play to publish it in _The
Fortnightly Review_, of which he was then editor. It was a feather in my
cap.