A Writer's Notebook

“Maugham is a great artist…. A genius.” —Theodore Dreiser ”An expert craftsman . . . His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual.” —New York Times ”[Maugham] has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendor of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist.” —Daily Telegraph ”The modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham”–George Orwell“Maugham remains the consummate craftsman . . . [Hid prose is] so compact, so economical, so closely motivated, so skillfully written that it rivets from first to last.” —Saturday Review of Literature   ”It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. . . . He was always so entirely there.” —Gore Vidal