The Magician
1908
In fin de siècle Paris, surgeon Arthur Burdon and his fiancée Margaret are enjoying their engagement when the grotesque Oliver Haddo enters their circle, a man who claims to possess genuine magical powers and sets his sights on Margaret. What begins as a social intrusion becomes a terrifying descent into the supernatural, as Haddo's dark influence creeps over Margaret's mind with horrifying intimacy. Arthur, a man of science and reason, finds his rational worldview shattered as he watches the woman he loves slip beyond his reach. The novel builds to a confrontation between the rational and the occult that remains genuinely unsettling over a century later. Maugham crafted this darkly atmospheric tale partially as a roman à clef based on Aleister Crowley, but it transcends mere portraiture to become a haunting exploration of desire, manipulation, and the thin membrane between the explainable and the evil that lurks beneath.
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“Yet magic is no more the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“One of my cherished ideas is that it is impossible to love without imagination””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“The Magus,the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with the fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“He was very tall, very thin, very fair. He wore a very high collar and very long hair, and held himself like an exhausted lily.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“Clayson had a vinous nose and a tedious habit of saying brilliant things.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“He seemed to have a positive instinct for operating, and his hand and his brain worked in a manner that appeared almost automatic. He never hesitated, and he had no fear of failure.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“Dr Porhoët knew that a diversity of interests, though it adds charm to a man’s personality, tends to weaken him. To excel one’s fellows it is needful to be circumscribed.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“If a wise man studies the science of the occult, his duty is not to laugh at everything, but to seek patiently, slowly, perseveringly, the truth that may be concealed in the night of these illusions.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
“If my eyes show me what all my training assures me is impossible, I can only conclude that my eyes deceive me.””
— W. Somerset Maugham
