The article demonstrates that the works by William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) are «a real storehouse» of Western ideas about Russia, the focus of British stereotypes of Russians, because he was not an «elite», but a «minor» writer – a brilliant witty storyteller and a «copier of life». It is evident that young and mature Maugham perceived the Russian world in a book of stories «Ashenden, or the British agent» (1928), in a novel «Christmas Holiday» (1939), in «A Writer’s Notebook» through the prism of Dostoevsky’s novels, he argued with the Russian writer and in a way was even obsessed with him.But when Maugham became old he lost his attraction to the Russian world.
Keywords
imagology; English and Russian literature; Dostoevsky.
