Maugham's personal badge

I don’t know if you have noticed that such a badge is printed in various published works of Maugham. This emblem appears on the envelope, cover, title page, or spine. This is a badge unique to Maugham and the only link between him and his father.

For many readers, Somerset Maugham is synonymous with the British Empire, and Maugham is the symbol of the British gentleman. Therefore, everyone thinks that he comes from a prominent family. In fact, Maugham's parents are new immigrants, professionals, and belong to the middle class.

They don't live in England, but in France. Maugham's life began in France (Maugham was born in the British Embassy in France) and died in France (in the last period of his life, Maugham was scolded and he never returned to the UK).

Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (1823-1884), was a lawyer. He was the third generation of a family of lawyers. He was famous in the legal profession and was one of the founders of the British Bar Association. .

Robert's family business was running quite well. In the 1840s, he moved his family to Paris and opened a branch with his partners directly opposite the British Embassy. His career further prospered after he was semi-officially appointed as legal adviser by the British Embassy.

In 1863, at the age of 39, Robert Maugham married the charming Edith Mary Snell, who was 16 years his junior. However, after giving birth to several sons, Edith still failed to recover from tuberculosis and eventually passed away. Maugham was 8 years old at this time.

Maugham's father was busy with work and only spent time with Maugham on Sundays a week. The relationship between the two was relatively unfamiliar.

At that time, Robert Maugham built a summer house a few miles west of Paris, near the Seine River. Every Sunday, the grieving father and son would check on the progress of the project. The house has a bit of an odd architectural style, part Japanese, part Swiss mountain farmhouse style. The house is painted white and the shutters are red. From here, you can overlook the beautiful panoramic view of the Seine and the entire Paris beyond.

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

In order to enhance the exotic atmosphere, he carved Moorish symbols of evil spirits on the windows. After becoming a writer, Maugham chose this logo as a special personal badge. Maugham's "Moorish Coat of Arms" made its first appearance in 1901 on the cover of the book "The Hero". From then until Maugham's death, almost every work was decorated with this special symbol.

When Maugham was 10 years old, Maugham's father fell seriously ill and passed away due to the loss of his wife. Maugham, who became an orphan, later traveled across the ocean to live with his uncle, a pastor, and began a more lonely and painful childhood.

Decades later, Maugham built himself a paradise, Villa Maresco, on a dense forest promontory in the Mediterranean. When the villa was completed, Maugham carved Moorish apotropaic symbols on the door, just as his father had done.

The original text of Villa Mauresque is Villa Mauresque, where Mauresque means "Moorish".

"If Somerset Maugham's legendary life is a tapestry, then Villa Maresco is the most gorgeous thread in it. This villa has been visited, photographed, photographed, and featured in countless articles Described as the world’s most famous author, he is admired for his opulent and exotic background.”

Maugham never let go of the premature death of his parents. Throughout his life, he kept a picture of his mother and a lock of her hair beside his bed. These two things, like the Moorish amulet symbols, are Maugham's most cherished things.

Maugham later wrote: "When my father was alive, he and I were just strangers. But somehow, after he died, the Evil Eye Amulet connected us forever. "

If you have Maugham's books on hand, you might as well take them out and take a look. Are they also printed with this badge? There are about ten Maugham books on my bookshelf, and almost every one of them has this badge printed on it, just in a different position.