Maugham's personal badge

I don't know if you've noticed, but there is such an emblem printed in various published works by Maugham. It appears on the wrapper, on the cover, on the title page, on the spine. It was Maugham's own insignia, his only link to his father.

For many readers, Somerset Maugham is the equivalent of the British Empire, and Maugham is the symbol of the English gentleman. So, while everyone assumed that he came from a generational family, in reality, Maugham's parents were new immigrants, professionals, and middle class.

They did not live in England, but in France. Maugham's life began in France (Maugham was born in the British Embassy in France), and he died in France (in the last part of his life, Maugham was maligned, and as a result he never returned to England).

Maugham's father, Robert Ormonde Maugham (1823-1884), was a solicitor, the third generation of a family of solicitors, and was renowned at the bar, as well as being one of the founders of the English Bar.

Robert's family estate was fairly well run, and in the 1840s he moved his family to Paris and opened a branch office with a partner directly opposite the British Embassy. His business prospered even more after he was semi-officially appointed legal advisor by the British Embassy.

In 1863, at the age of 39, Robert Maugham married the charming Edith Mary Snell, 16 years his junior. However, after having several sons, Edith was unable to recover from tuberculosis and eventually died. Maugham was 8 years old at this time.

Maum's father was busy with work and spent only a little time with Maum on Sundays, and the relationship was strained.

At the time, Robert Maugham had built a summer house a few miles west of Paris, near the Seine River. Every Sunday, the grieving father and son went to check on the progress of the work. The house was built in a somewhat strange architectural style, partly in the Japanese style and partly in the style of a Swiss mountain farmhouse. The house is painted white and the shutters are red. From here, there is a beautiful panoramic view of the Seine and the whole of Paris further afield.

Looking back on the period, Maugham described his father as a "romantic spirit" who never forgot his youthful travels to Morocco, Greece and Asia Minor, and who imagined his little house as a villa on the Bosphorus.

To enhance the exoticism, he carved Moorish symbols to ward off evil spirits in the windows. Maugham, who became a writer, chose this symbol as a special personal badge. Maugham's "Moorish emblem" made its debut in 1901 on the cover of The Hero, and it adorned virtually every one of Maugham's works until his death.

Maugham's father died at the age of ten after losing his wife to a serious illness. Orphaned, Maugham traveled across the ocean to a priest's uncle and began an even more lonely and painful childhood.

Decades later, Maugham built himself a paradise on a wooded Mediterranean promontory, Villa Malesco. When the villa was finished, Maugham had Moorish symbols engraved on the front door, just as his father had done.

Villa Mauresque was originally called Villa Mauresque, where Mauresque means "Moorish".

"If Maugham's life was a tapestry, Villa Mauresque is one of its most beautiful threads, visited, photographed, photographed, described in countless articles, and revered as an opulent, exotic backdrop for the world's most famous author.

Maugham never got over the early death of his parents. Throughout his life, he kept a photograph of his mother and a strand of her long hair by his bedside. These two items, along with the Moorish amulet symbol, were among Maugham's most cherished possessions.

Maugham later wrote: " When my father was alive, I was like him. But somehow, after he died, the evil eye amulet connected us forever. "

If you have any of Maugham's books on hand, you might want to take them out and see if they are also emblazoned with this emblem. I have about ten Maugham books on my shelves, and almost every one of them has this badge printed on it, just in different places.