Maugham, the son of Frederic Herbert, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Helen Mary Maugham, was also the nephew of Somerset Maugham. After studying law at Cambridge University, he fought with the Eighth Army and worked for the Middle East Intelligence Centre in North Africa during World War II. He was invalided out in 1945 as a consequence of a war injury in 1942 that left him with periodic bouts of amnesia for the rest of his life, precluding a continuance of his law career.
Maugham's wartime experience of Africa and the Middle East as well as later travels in Asia and Africa provided the material for his many novels, plays and non-fiction works. He lectured on the Middle East at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and in 1958 became the second Viscount Maugham of Hartfield, taking a seat in the House of Lords in 1960.
In 1966 Maugham came to Australia with his friend, Sandy Pratt, 'where I spent some of the happiest months of my life while I was searching for material for my novel, The Link. Never have I known such wonderful hospitality; I was almost overwhelmed by the help and kindness I received. Later, I sailed to Mexico to continue with my research. Then I settled down in a small hacienda outside Taxco to write the novel itself' (Escape from the Shadows: An Autobiography, 1972).
Maugham is best known for his novel The Servant (1948), subsequently filmed by Joseph Losey, and his study of his famous family, Somerset and All the Maughams (1966). In Escape from the Shadows (1972) he wrote of his own struggle to emerge from the shadows of his famous father and uncle. The book also revealed his homosexuality for the first time.
(Source: 'Robert Cecil Romer Maugham 1916-1981', Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.)
