ABSTRACT
Somerset M augham was fond o f remarking that writers whose work commands the attention o f posterity are usually drawn from those who were admired in their own time; but he also observed that such admiration could be ephemeral. In Cakes and Ale (1951) the narrator says: ‘I’ve been writing for thirty-five years now, and you can’t think how many geniuses I’ve seen acclaimed, enjoy their hour or two o f glory, and then vanish into obscurity. I wonder w hat’s happened to them. . . . I wonder if they are still great men in some Italian pensione. ’
