Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by
W. Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention." Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel
Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a section of
Spinoza's
Ethics. The
Modern Library ranked
Of Human Bondage No. 66 on its list of the
100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.