Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham was born at the British embassy in Paris into a prominent family of lawyers. He spent the first 10 years of his life in France before eventually going to school in both England and Germany. When he was young, he struggled with a stammer. Maugham eventually went on to medical school in London, qualifying as a physician in 1897 but never going into practice due to his success as a writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, was published in the same year and set in the slums of London, which Maugham witnessed firsthand while assisting an obstetrician during his medical training. Initially, Maugham was best known as a playwright, and at the height of his popularity, he had four different plays on London’s West End at the same time. In 1914, Maugham began affairs with both Syrie Wellcome and Frederick Gerald; the former would become his wife and the mother of his daughter while the latter would become his partner for three decades. In 1915, Maugham published the semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage, which remains perhaps his best-known work today and has been adapted into different mediums, including at least three major films. Maugham’s later novels, such as The Painted Veil and Cakes and Ale, also received acclaim. Also he stopped writing plays in the 1930s, he continued to write novels and short stories up until his death of a fall at the age of 91.

The timeline of protagonist Philip’s life in Of Human Bondage roughly matches up with the life of W. Somerset Maugham himself, and this means that real historical events get referenced in the novel. Perhaps the most notable one for the plot is the Second Boer War, in which Hayward dies and which leaves Philip destitute as England goes into an economic depression. The Boers were White, Dutch-speaking settlers of the area today known as South Africa, and they competed for control of the region with the British at the turn of the century. The Second Boer War spanned from 1899 to 1902, during which the Boer states were among the first to use guerrilla tactics against the British (as opposed to head-on warfare). Despite some British victories, the Boers were ultimately victorious, leading to the development of contemporary South Africa and the implement the racial segregation system of apartheid. Another relevant historical context is the illegal status of homosexuality in England at the time of the novel’s publication. Maugham watched with horror the trial of fellow playwright Oscar Wilde, who was convicted on charges of gross indecency for his sexual affairs with other men and sentenced to two years’ hard labor. Seeing Wilde’s fate, Maugham attempted to be discreet about his own relationships with men. This has led some critics to speculate that certain female characters in this semi-autobiographical novel, like Mildred, may have actually been inspired by men, although due to Maugham’s private nature on this issue, such claims can be difficult to prove or disprove.

Of Human Bondage is considered a work of literary modernism, a literary period spanning from the late 19th century and early 20th century and whose works incorporated revolutionary forms and narrative techniques. Some of the key figures of this era include Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway), Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), D. H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers), and James Joyce (Ulysses). In the novel, Maugham also references Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a work of nonfiction in which Darwin notably describes his theory of evolution, which was controversial at the time because it contradicted religious explanations for the origins of humankind. Like Of Human Bondage protagonist Philip, many (though not all) of Maugham’s contemporary modernist writers took skeptical views of religion, inspired in part by emerging scientific theories like Darwin’s theory of evolution, which contradicted traditional religious creation stories. At the time, some critics considered Maugham’s writing to be too populist, and in general his writing style is more conventional and straightforward than many of his fellow modernist writers, who were known for writing challenging books that employed new narrative techniques. Still, he remains an important literary figure, and notable writers have cited Maugham as an influence, including George Orwell (1984), Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep), Ian Fleming (the James Bond novels), and V. S. Naipaul (A House for Mr. Biswas).