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The Magician
W. Somerset Maugham
Book Overview:
The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, where he accused Maugham of plagiarism. Maugham wrote The Magician in London, after he had spent some time living in Paris, where he met Aleister Crowley. The novel was later republished with a foreword by Maugham entitled A Fragment of Autobiography.
The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, where he accused Maugham of plagiarism. Maugham wrote The Magician in London, after he had spent some time living in Paris, where he met Aleister Crowley. The novel was later republished with a foreword by Maugham entitled A Fragment of Autobiography.
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They looked idly at the various shows, resisting the melodramas, the circuses, the exhibitions of eccentricity, which loudly clamoured for their custom. Presently they came to a man who was cutting silhouettes in black paper, and Haddo insisted on posing for him. A little crowd collected and did not spare their jokes at his singular appearance. He threw himself into his favourite attitude of proud command. Margaret wished to take the opportunity of leaving him, but Miss Boyd insisted on staying.
'He's the most ridiculous creature I've ever seen in my life,' she whispered. 'I wouldn't let him out of my sight for worlds.'
When the silhouette was done, he presented it with a low bow to Margaret.
'I implore your acceptance of the only portrait now in existence of
Oliver Haddo,' he said.
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Community Reviews
Maugham's novel The Magician is an aesthetic disaster. From the fumbling realism at the beginning of the novel to the childishly Gothic fable that it turns into, the book seems to lack structure, design and well developed characters.
Maugham himself, on reading the book later, described it as “lush
Finished in a few hours. A great story that could have been written by Dennis Wheatley. Haddo the magician a character based on Aleister Crowley. Maugham mentions meeting him in the preamble. Crowley also wrote a review of this book which I have downloaded to read.
My first book by Somerset Maugham
This was a strange and yet entertaining story. This story is not based off traditional witchcraft but gets more into the shadowy and occult black arts.
It started out with ordinary people with ordinary lives for the time period until the mysterious Oliver Haddo comes into their lives. Doctor Arthur
This is a rather strange, but fascinating little book. Despite the short length (196 on my edition) it feels almost like two separate books It starts off as something like a comedy of errors, then slowly becomes more sinister until it becomes a flat out horror novel.
The story focuses on a couple tha
I liked the premise of this book and enjoyed it up until the point about two thirds of the way through where it jumped the shark. Assuming you can accept the questionable premise of a man in his early thirties becoming infatuated and proposing to his nineteen year old ward and if you are not put off
The Magician has so many of those elements that send my little dark-fiction reader heart racing, among them pulpy mysterious melodrama, a bit of decadence, and of course the dark forces of the occult and the supernatural. At its heart though, it is a story of revenge plotted by a most sinister villa