Remembering Mr. Maugham

By: Garson Kanin

This kaleidoscopic portrait of Somerset Maugham grew out of a long, warm friendship between him and the famous American playwright-director Garson Kanin. Though Maugham was Kanin's senior by nearly forty years, the two quickly established a never-flagging community of interests which produced exciting talk wherever they met, the Riviera, New York, Hollywood or London. Because Kanin made notes while conversation was fresh, his book takes form as a journal, though not chronological. It is an informal series of impressions tumbling forth with the verbal abandon one might expect at a private party. The tone is affectionate yet knowing, sympathetic yet tart. While recognizing Maugham's creative stature, Kanin was never blinded to his peculiar traits and habits. These he accepted with easy tolerance as part of a stimulating human being. For Maugham he became the perfect audience. As a treasury of Somerset Maugham's candid opinions, attitudes and tastes, this book abounds in off-the-cuff recollection of the past and the circumstances under which he wrote his best-known stories and novels. His lively, often impudent speech is enriched by descriptions of the Old Party in action, his dramatic presence at parties of the international set, and his lavish life at the Villa Mauresque, where Kanin and his wife, the distinguished actress Ruth Gordon, were welcome guests. Nearly every page glimmers with celebrated names-Ethel Barrymore, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Lee Shubert; Laurence Olivier, Shaw, Picasso, Claudette Colbert, Harpo Marx, Gene Tunney, Moss Hart, Frank Sinatra, to mention a few. Unconventional in approach, this volume gives added dimension to the life and works of an enduring literary figure.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000OFVWJY
• Release Date: January 1966
• Publisher: Atheneum.
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.2" x 8.9"