William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 After graduating from Heidelberg University he worked at a hospital, but the success of his first novel "Liza of Lambeth" (1897) encouraged him to give up medicine and become a professional writer.
Somerset Maugham is the author of several well-known novels and plays, and a lot of short stories.
He died in 1966 at the age of ninety-two.
