Book description
At the age of twenty-three, Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks,
good manners and a happy disposition. Following three years at Cambridge
and one in his father's business, he is now looking forward to a jaunt
in Paris with Simon Fenimore, his oldest friend. Yet Paris is not what
he expects. And in just a few days his young eyes are opened to the
horror and ugly drama of its underworld. Published before the outbreak
of war in 1939, Maugham's purpose in Christmas Holiday was to warn the
complacent, insular British middle-class of the immense upheavals taking
place on the Continent. William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and
lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School,
Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St.
Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success
of his first novel,
Liza of Lambeth
, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage
, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the
publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence
his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame
as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with
acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several
short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays,
criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up
and A Writer's Notebook
. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived
there until his death in 1965
