The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham

This steady-eyed biography of an extraordinary, extravagant, generous and bitter artist will not only fascinate its readers but encourage some to go to his work for the first time - Times Literary Supplement, Jeremy Treglown

Hastings’ Life of Maugham is pitch-perfect: supple, confident and written with something of the same beady detachment (and enjoyable signature streak of malice) as the great tale-teller himself - Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph

Hastings provides a searing emotional history…her closing chapter…is so powerfully written, in places so shocking, as to give a series of physical jolts to the reader. Hastings’s book cannot be bettered - Richard Davenport-Hines, Sunday Telegraph

Every so often, a biography appears of such authority and such power that it is more than a chronicle of a human life, it is a work of art…brilliant…such is Selina Hasting’s skill that this horrible story is richly enjoyable - A. N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest

Engrossing … a brilliant evocation - Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times

The year’s best biography by far - Sunday Express

Selina Hastings has coped manfully with the task of summarising Maugham’s huge oeuvre without distracting her readers from his long and eventful life - The Oldie

‘Supple, confident and written with the same beady detachment shown by the writer himself - Daily Telegraph