Alan Searle (1905-1985) became the private secretary and companion of

W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

following the death of

Gerald Haxton Frederick Gerald Haxton (1892 – November 7, 1944), a native of San Francisco, was the long term secretary and lover of novelist and playwright W. Somerset Maugham.Hastings, Selinia. ''The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham'', New York: Random House ...

in 1944. He took up residence at Maugham's villa in the Riviera and remained with him until Maugham's death in 1965. Maugham first met Searle in 1928, when Searle was "a very youthful looking twenty-three, a working class boy from Bermondsey, the son of a Dutch tailor and cockney mother".Selina Hastings, ''The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham'', p. 344 He was the lover of several famous older men, including

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

, who called Searle his "Bronzino boy". Searle developed an antagonistic relationship with Maugham's daughter, Liza. In his final years, Maugham made an unsuccessful attempt to disinherit his daughter and to adopt Searle as his son. Following Maugham's death, Searle went into retirement in

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

. He was interviewed by the scholar

Robert Calder Admiral Sir Robert Calder, 1st Baronet, (2 July 174531 August 1818) was a British naval officer who served in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. For much of his career ...

when Calder was writing his biography of Maugham. Searle died in 1985.

References

1905 births 1985 deaths British writers {{UK-writer-stub