A Conversation with Somerset Maugham

Filmed at Somerset Maugham's villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Mediterranean, this program from the NBC archives features the author and playwright in a far-ranging 1965 conversation with British critic and journalist Alan Pryce-Jones. Maugham speaks about a recent trip to the far East; the writing of Of Human Bondage; his time as a medical student at St. Thomas Hospital; his view of Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, and Leaves of Grass as the best American books; his challenges in writing both plays and fiction and his reasons for ceasing to write for the stage; his admiration for Rudyard Kipling, whose imperialist notions Maugham acknowledges to be outmoded; and his views on Sinclair Lewis, Voltaire, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, French Impressionism, opera, and creative writing schools. He also discuses The Razor's Edge. (29 minutes) A streaming videorecording.