W. Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham CH (/ˈmɔːm/ MAWM; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.

After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a physician. The initial run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time.

During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he travelled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.

Somerset

Somerset (ⁱ/ˈsʌmərsɛt/ or /ˈsʌmərsᵻt/) is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.

Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of human occupation from Paleolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion. The city of Bath is famous for its substantial Georgian architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Somerset (UK Parliament constituency)

Somerset was a parliamentary constituency in Somerset, which returned two Members of Parliament (MPs), known traditionally as knights of the shire, to the House of Commons of England until 1707, the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832.

Elections were held by the bloc vote system.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1290–1629

MPs 1640–1832

References

Sources

Somerset (SEPTA station)

Somerset Station is an elevated stop on the Market-Frankford Line, above the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Kensington neighborhood. During peak hours, the station is served by "B" trains only.

Like the nearby Huntingdon Station, Somerset is located over a five-way intersection, which is northeast of a high truss bridge over a Conrail freight line. Access to the station from street-level can be found at the southwest and southeast corners of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street. Unlike Huntingdon, no access is available from D Street.

The station is adjacent to the corner of Kensington and Somerset, named by Philadelphia Weekly in 2007 as the number one drug corner in the city. The corner itself is dominated by sales of hypodermic needles and the methadone-like detox medication Suboxone, with referrals readily available to one of the many heroin dealers on nearby blocks.

Station layout

SEPTA City Bus Connections