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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 22 September 2022 [1].

W. Somerset Maugham[edit]

Nominator(s): Tim riley talk 20:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Following successful FAC nominations or co-nominations for George Bernard Shaw, Hugh Walpole, P. G. Wodehouse and Arnold Bennett I've been working on another British writer, and hope his article will be found worthy to join the other four at FA. I had excellent input at peer review, and as ever, all comments on content, prose, structure or anything else will be gratefully received here. Tim riley talk 20:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt[edit]

Mostly a placeholder as yet, but why is the full name bolded at the start of the body? If I may be so bold.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:10, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't it oughter? Shows my mastery of the MoS after all these years. Happy to unbold it, which I shall forthwith do. Tim riley talk 20:18, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And now done. Thank you, Wehwalt! Tim riley talk 20:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also in footnote 2?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I've only been editing for 16 years, so I can be excused (ahem!). Fixed. Tim riley talk 15:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Maugham never greatly liked the name, and was known by family and friends throughout his life as "Willie"" Which? William or Somerset?
  • "He successfully sued for divorce in 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent.[11][61]" The birth of the child served to establish adultery, I assume? (after a hasty glance my notes re divorce from the Earl Russell's article) It might be well to cite the grounds.
  • "Samoa" Greater detail on this trip and why it was felt necessary (given that Samoa had been occupied by New Zealand at this point) might be interesting.
  • The source says "Germany had controlled Western Samoa until New Zealand occupied the island when war broke out in August 1914. The British had a strategic interest in Samoa, a turbulent and potentially troublesome island. The efficient German administration had been abruptly replaced by the government of New Zealand ... Vital information was needed about the use of the island's powerful radio station, the threat of German military forces and installations, and the danger from German warships still cruising the Pacific." That's about it – nothing more there, really, one can add to the article. Tim riley talk 15:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's all I have. Most interesting. I think I can safely Support--Wehwalt (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, as always, Wehwalt, for your input and support. Tim riley talk 15:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Dudley[edit]

Support. I read this at PR and Tim dealt with my niggles. A very interesting and well written article. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:35, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Dudley, for your support here and v. helpful suggestions at PR. Tim riley talk 20:54, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Z1720[edit]

Non-expert prose review.

  • The lede says "Three years into an affair that produced their daughter, Liza." but the infobox says "Mary Elizabeth Wellcome", which confused me. Suggest replacing Liza with Mary or Mary Elizabeth.
  • "Shortly before the birth of the Maughams' fourth son the government of France proposed a new law" suggest a comma after son
  • "Maugham's biographer Selina Hastings describes as "the first step in Maugham's loss of faith" his disillusion when the God in whom he had been taught to believe failed to answer his prayers for relief from his troubles." The grammar is a little weird in this sentence. Perhaps, "Maugham's biographer Selina Hastings describes as "the first step in Maugham's loss of faith" was when God failed to answer his prayers for relief from his troubles." It tightens up the language and makes the sentence grammatically correct.
  • "While still in his teens he became a lifelong non-believer." I don't think still is needed and can be deleted.
  • "From 1892 until he qualified in 1897," What does qualified mean in this instance?
  • "In his work as a medical student Maugham met the poorest working class people:" Suggest a comma after student
  • See explanation of BrE -v- AmE comma usage, above. This is correct as drawn so far as commas are concerned, but a hyphen would be an improvement in "poorest working-class people" I now notice. Duly done. – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "on his 65-year career as a man of letters." -> "on his 65-year career as a writer." to avoid MOS:IDIOM
  • I agree. I inherited this sentence from earlier versions. One is loth to change more than one must of earlier editors' contributions: one has a duty to avoid saying grandly "This is how I would phrase it", unless one can conscientiously say the existing phrasing is wrong or doesn't do the job properly. Your comment salves my conscience about imposing my preferred wording here. Now "career as a writer". – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Nevertheless he had a wish to marry, which he later greatly regretted. Looking back, he described his early attempts to be heterosexual as the greatest mistake in his life." Suggest combining these two sentences together as "Nevertheless he had a wish to marry, which he later greatly regretted and later described his attempts to be heterosexual as the greatest mistake in his life."
  • "a Bildungsroman with unmistakably autobiographical elements." Remove unmistakably as an opinionated, POV term: it is possible that others might "mistake" and not notice the autobiographical terms, and the word isn't necessary.
  • "According to some of Maugham's intimates, the main female character, the manipulative Mildred, was based on "a youth, probably a rent boy, with whom he became infatuated", but Raphael comments that there is no firm evidence for this,[11][55] and Meyers suggests that she is based on Harry Phillips, a young man whom Maugham had taken to Paris as, nominally, his secretary for a prolonged stay in 1905.[56]" This is very long sentence, and I suggest putting a period after the quote and removing "but"
  • Good. Done.
  • "When the book was published in 1915 some of the initial reviews were favourable but many, both in Britain and in the US, were unenthusiastic." Put a comma after 1915.
  • No. See explanation of BrE -v- AmE comma usage, above. This is correct as drawn.
  • "In 1915 Syrie Wellcome became pregnant, and in September, while Maugham was on leave to be with her, she gave birth to their only child, a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, known as Liza." If Wellcome had a child, then we can assume that she was pregnant, so that detail is not necessary to include unless there was something notable about the pregnancy. Suggest: "In September 1915, Maugham was on leave to be with Syrie Wellcome while she gave birth to their only child Mary Elizabeth, known as Liza." I also think that the readers will assume that this is a daughter by the name, so this cuts down the sentence some more.
  • See explanation of BrE -v- AmE comma usage, above. This is correct as drawn so far as the punctuation is concerned. As to the sentence, I agree we can lose "a daughter", and have blitzed it. – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In late 1920 Maugham and Haxton set out on a trip that lasted more than a year." Comma after 1920
  • "which Maugham despised from the first, but found highly remunerative" -> "which Maugham despised but found highly lucrative" the article doesn't need to specify that he did not like it from the start, and I think lucrative is a more common word than remunerative.
  • In my experience – possibly an EngVar thing – there is a shady overtone to "lucrative" that "remunerative" doesn't suffer from. WSM's immediate dislike is worth mentioning. – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Maugham, as always, observed closely and collected material for his stories wherever they went." Delete as always as unnecessary
  • "In Maugham's absence his wife found an occupation, becoming a sought-after interior designer." -> "In Maugham's absence, his wife became a sought-after interior designer." To reduce the number of words necessary
  • "During the 1920s Maugham published one novel (The Painted Veil, 1925), three books of short stories (The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), The Casuarina Tree (1926) and Ashenden (1928)) and a travel book (On a Chinese Screen, 1922)" Either all of these years should be in brackets, or none should.
  • "Germans and remained at the villa, securing it and its contents as far as possible, before making his way via Lisbon to New York." Should this be "as long as possible"?
  • No. He secured them as much as he could. (And did a pretty good job, hiding paintings etc so that the occupying Germans did not get their hands on many of them. Can't quantify his success/failure rate from the sources, unfortunately.) – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As always, Maugham wrote continually. His daily routine was to write between an early breakfast and lunchtime, after which he entertained himself." -> "As always, Maugham wrote continually. His daily routine was to write between an early breakfast and lunchtime, after which he entertained himself." I don't think the first sentence is necessary if the article states that his daily routine involved writing.
  • "and his influence for better or worse on his employer." Delete "for better or worse" as the sentence already says that biographers differ, so describing the two options for influence is not necessary.
  • "was an adaptation by other hands" by other hands might be considered an MOS:IDIOM. Is there a more specific way that these people can be described?
  • In the first paragraph of "Plays" it is weird how it says the majority of the plays were comedies, names his dramatic plays, then lists the comedies. Suggest putting the information about the comedies first then talk about the dramas.
  • "A few of Maugham's plays have been revived occasionally. " I don't think this sentence is necessary and can be deleted.
  • " In the 1928 volume Ashenden features in sixteen stories;" comma after 1928
  • It is. Not sure what to do about the middle initial. The article is clearly ascribed to Robert L. Calder, but our article omits the L. I have piped with the middle initial, and might add a redirect from Robert L. Calder to Robert Calder (writer). What do you think? – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In the Maugham article, I would have the prose reflect the name that Calder used in the byline of the source, which in this case would include the middle initial, and pipe it to the wiki article (as has already been done in the article). I'm also tempted to move Robert Calder (writer) to Robert L. Calder because sources seem to always use the L. Z1720 (talk) 14:26, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support that, if you like to propose it. Tim riley talk 14:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In Calder's view Maugham's "ability to tell a fascinating story and his dramatic skill"" comma after view
  • "but his liberal attitudes, disregard of conventional morality and unsentimental view of humanity led adapters to make his stories" comma after humanity
  • Unnecessary, and I should say ungrammatical. Fowler (p. 166) says "The subject of a sentence should not be separated by a comma from the verb it governs". In this case the eleven words from "liberal" to "humanity" are the subject, and "led" is the verb it governs. – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in "The Ant and the Grasshopper" a young adventurer marries not a rich old woman who dies soon afterwards but a rich young one who remains very much alive." -> " in "The Ant and the Grasshopper" a young adventurer does not marry a rich old woman who dies soon afterward but a rich young one who remains alive."
  • "A rising critic of a younger generation, Cyril Connolly," is this Cyril Connolly? If so, wikilink.
  • "Marking Maugham's eightieth birthday The New York Times commented" comma after birthday.

Those are my thoughts. Please ping when the above are addressed. Z1720 (talk) 00:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Z1720, thank you for your suggestions. Some useful stuff there. Actioned as described above where appropriate. – Tim riley talk 10:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Thanks for your responses. Sorry that you had to repeat about the commas. I added a comment about Calder above, but that won't change anything in the article. Feel free to ping me if there are other concerns. Z1720 (talk) 14:26, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the support as well as for your helpful suggestions. Do ping me if you want support for moving Calder's article. Tim riley talk 14:33, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review[edit]

  • File:Ambassade_Royaume-Uni_Paris_1.jpg needs a tag for the original work
Once again, thank you, Nikkimaria for your help. Tim riley talk 06:45, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Fowler&fowler[edit]

What can I say? It takes me back to that summer sometime in high school when I read Of Human Bondage and Naipaul's Miguel Street (which had won the Somerset Maugham Award) among other books. So with that in mind as much as anything else, here's an appreciation, a list which I have scribbled on a dentist's bill—an anesthetic I hope for viewing it, and the nice touches for the commonplace book:

  • "his disillusion" (i.e. the condition of being freed from illusion)
  • "arranged accommodation for him, and aged sixteen he travelled"
  • "made himself comfortable there, filled many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly,"
  • "From 1892 until he qualified in 1897, he studied ..."
  • "a reprint was quickly arranged"
  • "Lifelong, Maugham was highly reticent ..." (i.e. the comment adverb)
  • "providing a convincing domestic cover"
  • "despised from the first (noun as an adverb phrase)
  • "In M's absence his wife found an occupation ..."
  • (quoted) "materialistic determinism that discounted any possibility of changing the human condition"
  • (quoted from M): "words have weight, sound and appearance"
Fowler&fowler, many thanks for your support and the piquant comments above: they are greatly appreciated. I confess I was, and still am, not 100% convinced by "Lifelong, Maugham was highly reticent ..." but I couldn't think of a better way of putting it concisely. The grammar is all right but somehow the tune sounds a little off-key, if that makes sense. Be that as it may, can we, I wonder, look forward to Mandell Creighton at some point? It would be good if he were to get to FA. You will, I hope, be pleased to see that I have twice quoted your namesake in my replies to User:Z1720, above. − Tim riley talk 10:50, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds fine to me, but if you'd like you could change it to "All his lifelong he ..." I see Saul Bellow (whom I ran into once in the stacks of the college library in Chicago and was rendered speechless) has "All his lifelong he sold nonexistent property, concessions he did not own, and air-spun schemes to greedy men." (He might have life long.) Your choice. There's also Sterne: "all his lifelong he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay."
And that brings me to the neglected Right Reverend, me being the peasant, that is. (I just finished Darjeeling at FAR, and have achieved some peace at Lion capital of Ashoka, a start class, so yes, I'm very much thinking of Creighton.) Have been tinkering, taking the load off James Covert (his only real biographer) by mixing in Fallows (1964), MC and the English Church. Fallows, slightly dated but OK, has a lot on the later years which I hope to use. There are the ODNB articles on MC and L(ouise)C. There is Lytton Strachey's sketch, or mis-sketch, and there are a few new articles. All will be grist. Surprisingly, there is still not a whole lot. I will then pass on the article to you. Will keep you posted.
Yes I saw the references to F. I have my grandfather's copy from the 1920s lying somewhere, as is the F brothers' The King's English (written in Edwardian times). Gifted they certainly were. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for that. I've carried the episcopal thread over to your user talk page. Tim riley talk 13:43, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review – Pass[edit]

Will do soon. Aza24 (talk) 03:42, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting
  • Ref 95, "Mander and Mitchenson, pp. 252–252", strikes me as odd :)
  • Ref 160, McCrum, could use a retrieval date
  • Isn't it either/or? Publication date or failing that the retrieval date? For the purposes of WP:V either does the job and adding both seems superfluous. Where a full publication date is known (not merely the year), my practice has always been to stick to that. – Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref 118, Sutherland, appears to be missing a publication year. Same with 187
  • In both cases I have ducked a question I can't answer. The Who's Who entry was put online in 2007 but of course derives from WSM's entry in the printed version, which came out during his lifetime at an unspecified date. Adding 2007 here would be rather misleading, I feel. For the Sutherland article, the OUP page says that it was written in one year (1996) and published online in a different one (2005). I think we can do without either date here, but I'm happy to add one of the two if pressed, though I'd be unsure which. Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you were using the online sources, I see no issue with adding the dates which they were uploaded, I rather think of it akin to citing using a book's second edition, so citing that edition's year (you could even put |edition=Online). Without a date of any kind, I would be quite hesitant Aza24 (talk) 20:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The BBC's web pages refer to it variously as "BBC Genome" or "BBC Genome Project". As with, say, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, I think the shorter and more familiar title is probably better for general purposes. Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The NYT ref 145 is missing a retrieval date as well, and should include the author's name, Anita Gates
  • I understand the intent of ref 2 to world cat, but I don't think this is the right way to go about demonstrating the prevalence of the use of 'Somerset Maugham' over 'W. Somerset Maugham'. Perhaps something simpler like "in many the titles of some biographies and studies he is referred as Somerset Maugham tout court, see the that of Raphael, Meyers and Hastings for instance", then a ref would not be needed.
Reliability
  • I would be remiss to not mention the use of Maugham's own writings. I checked a few uses and found them largely appropriate, being primarily used for quotes and such Given that they are heavily outnumbered by scholarly references, this doesn't stand out as an issue to me. However, if any of them are indeed replaceable with secondary sources, you might consider doing so.
  • There are 15 citations to WSM's own writings: 12 are verbatim quotations of his stated opinions and the other three are my paraphrases of them. I have not relied on his writings so far as matters of fact are concerned: quite apart from Wikipedia's policy on primary sources, it would in this case be rash to rely on Maugham's versions of events, which are, to put it politely, questionable. The only borderline case, I think, is Footnote 3, which I inherited from an earlier version of the article and would be perfectly happy to blitz if nudged towards doing so. – Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another matter I feel a need to address would be the use of rather old sources. These seem generally appropriate; refs 31–34 and 76–78, for instance, I cannot find genuine fault with in those contexts. But again, if any of these can indeed but substituted for newer sources, that would be best.
  • As you say, 31–34 and 76–78 are the original sources for contemporary press quotations. The only book source I have drawn on extensively that dates back to Maugham's own time is Mander and Mitchenson. There wasn't a second edition of that, but it may give you comfort to note that when their successors brought out a second edition of M&M's 1957 Theatrical Companion to Noël Coward in 2000 there were updates and additions to production details but I have not spotted any corrections of the first edition in the second. (And alas, new productions of Maugham plays are so rare that a second edition of that Companion will never be needed.) Of the three biographies I have most drawn on, Morgan's 1980 book is the oldest, but Meyers (2004) and Hastings (2010) cite Morgan repeatedly, and his is still probably the most important biography of WSM. – Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Verifiability
Thank you, Aza24 for your thorough review. I loathe doing source reviews and am always grateful to editors who undertake the task; I found your layout in three separate sections particularly helpful. I have dealt with most of your suggestions and left questions about the others, above. – Tim riley talk 11:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments and support from Gerda[edit]

Again, I am curious and want to learn something new. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:50, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

TOC and infobox

  • I can imagine to begin with upper case (Travel) after "1920s: " unless the year goes to the end (which I have seen).
  • I am not all happy with a header of only years.
  • I believe that the headers for references - which create a lot of white space - might be reduced, replacing them by bold titles.
  • I'd prefer the occupations in the infobox as unbulleted list {{ubl}} - we have all that space.
  • These stylistic points are a matter of personal preference. I do not think your suggestions a particular improvement but I should have no strong objection to your altering the existing version if you insist on it. Tim riley talk 10:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Background ...

  • Can we first read what the oldest son did, and then what The Times thought?
  • After having read about the children I conclude that William is the third or the fourth son, or what did I miss? I also wonder which child(ren) did not survive.
  • I have added Henry's dates to make it unmistakeably clear that he was the third son. Details of the babies that died in infancy vary from source to source, and I have not thought it necessary or desirable to bring them into the article. Tim riley talk 10:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the next para, I begin to think he could be the fourth, but only when born I can be sure ;)
  • "He later said that for him" read strange the first time, it's ambiguous. Yes, the second reading made clear what's meant.
  • "Two and a half years after Edith's death, Robert Maugham died, and Maugham was sent to England ..." - I'd call them his mother and his father, to avoid calling an adult woman by only her first name, and also the repetition of Maugham.
  • Perhaps French being his first language could come sooner with life in Paris?

Secret service ...

1920s ...

  • The long sentence about the trip to U.S. and Honolulu ... might profit from a split, to avoid "before ... before".
  • "had taken lovers of her own" - not sure we need "of her own"
  • In the list of the works he wrote, I see too many brackets. All these works have articles, so the years are possibly not needed for this overview?
  • I do not disagree, but I know at least one editor, whose views I respect, who is a stickler for dates in such cases, and I am inclined to leave it as it is unless the balance of opinion is in favour of the change. Tim riley talk 10:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • How is a play from 1915 from the 1920s decade? - performance yes

Second World War

  • "had already chosen a replacement as secretary-companion" - perhaps English is different but in German to say "replacement" of a person would seem disrespectful

I finished reading the Life section, will turn to Works later. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I now read Works and like it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:14, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Finally: the lead. I like it all, but think to have first life, then work titles might provide background to the works. Perhaps fewer titles, and a bit of style? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:21, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That would be an equally valid way of laying out the lead, but I do not think it would be noticeably better than the existing version. All above points now addressed. Thank you for your contribution. Tim riley talk 10:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking the time for detailed explanations, and I learned again. I still believe two sentences about his style in the lead would be good for someone who doesn't know his work, but up to you. Support. Excellent image layout, btw, which I don't see often. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Point taken about mentioning WSM's style in the lead, and now done. Tim riley talk 17:24, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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