W. Somerset Maugham

publication date: Monday, December 3, 2018 (part of Winter 2019)

clue: This mostly gay would-be doctor wrote about human bondage, a razor's edge, and a magician not unlike Aleister Crowley.

explanation: Maugham was a physician before becoming a full-time writer. He described himself as three-fourths queer. His best-known novels include Of Human Bondage, The Razor's Edge, and The Magician. more…

difficulty: easy

solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Samir Mehta, LaVonne Lemler, Chris Lemler, Matthew Preston, Richard Slominsky, Erik Bates, and Stan Iwanchuk

Gothic Goodbye: The RPG Gothic Earth has been set in a world of literary creations roughly contemporary to its 1899 setting, with characters like Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula driving much of the storyline. After a decade of play, the game is now in its final weeks. Here's sending it off with a two-week retrospective of authors of that era whose works captured the popular imagination, in the order in which they shaped the world of Gothic Earth.

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