This is a biography of Maugham. In 1933, at the height of his career, he had four plays running in the West End in the same week. His novels include Cakes and Ale, The Moon and Sixpence and Of Human Bondagea, all made into films. His most famous short story, Rain, was made into a film three times. He established in the South of France a famous watering-hole - visitors included the Windsors, the Aga Khan, H.G. Wells and Churchill. As Raphael says, for a stoic he lived a good life as an Epicurean. Maugham was also a spy and, notoriously, a secretive homosexual. His marriage to Syrie, daughter of the Dr Barnado, is a moving story of impossible love.