Celebrated author, avant garde human, and wartime spy.
"Frederick Gerald Haxton (1892–1944), a native of San Francisco, was the long term secretary and lover of novelist and playwright W. Somerset Maugham. He and Maugham met at the outbreak of World War I when they both began serving as part of a Red Cross ambulance unit in French Flanders... Maugham, and to a lesser extent Haxton, had been affected by the trial of Oscar Wilde.... Haxton continued as Maugham's constant companion for 30 years, until he died in a private room in the Doctors Hospital, New York. Maugham later placed the following dedication in his 1949 compilation, A Writer’s Notebook: "In Loving Memory of My Friend Frederick Gerald Haxton, 1892–1944." [1]
"Where do I begin with the tale of Ethelwyn? ...Maugham once wrote that 'the memory of her lingered on in his mind, year after year' and that [he] never fully recovered from losing her to Angus... Maugham cared for her so much that he commissioned the great English painter, Sir Gerald Kelly, to render her form on canvas, which was entitled Mrs. Leveaux in White in 1907... Not yet a Sir, Gerald would become her lover... The painting was breathtaking, just like the young lady herself... "[2]
"Despite his ingrained misogyny and homosexuality, the great love of Maugham's life was undoubtedly the warm, gentle, maternal, sexy Sue Jones..." [3]
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M > Maugham > William Somerset Maugham
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