I am willing to take life as a game of chess in which the first rules are not open to discussion. No one asks why the knight is allowed his eccentric hop, why the castle may only go straight and the bishop obliquely. These things are to be accepted, and with these rule the game must be played: it is foolish to complain of them.

Maugham had been writing steadily since the age of 15 and fervently wiW. Somerset Maughamd to become an author but as he was not of age he refrained from telling his guardian. A. Based on the novel Theatre.

The first run of his first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897) sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full time. During and after the war he traveled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.