Somerset Maugham became one of the most successful writers of the 20th century. Behind the fame was a relationship he could not safely discuss in public.

Maugham had strong Kent connections. Orphaned as a child, he was sent to Whitstable to live with his uncle, the Reverend Henry Maugham, and was educated at King's School in Canterbury.

As an adult he married Syrie Wellcome in 1917 and they had a daughter, Liza. Yet the great male relationship of Maugham's life was with the American Gerald Haxton.

They had met during the First World War while serving with a Red Cross ambulance unit. Haxton became Maugham's companion, secretary and an important presence in his life for decades.

Why the secrecy? Sexual activity between men was criminalised in Britain during Maugham's lifetime. The prosecution of Oscar Wilde in 1895 had demonstrated just how destructive exposure could be to a man's freedom and reputation.

Maugham therefore lived in a world where a central part of his emotional life had to remain guarded. Even in 1949, when he dedicated A Writer's Notebook to Haxton after his death, he publicly described him simply as his friend.

Haxton died in 1944. Maugham lived until 1965.

Today their relationship can be discussed with a freedom they did not have. It adds a deeply human dimension to the story of a writer whose work examined love, secrecy and complicated lives - subjects he understood personally.

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