Somerset Maugham's non-visit to Calgary

A century ago, author and playwright W. Somerset Maugham was expected to visit Calgary, where it was presumed that he was researching for a play he was going to write about the phenomenon of the English remittance man in the Canadian west. He never arrived. Here is the fanciful account of a Calgary News-Telegram reporter about Maugham's non-visit—or why his visit, if it occurred, was not reported. It was first published December 5, 1912—100 years ago today:

AS A WILD, WOOLY COWTOWN CALGARY IS A FLAT FAILURE 

 

But as Live, Progressive Metropolis It is Liable to Give Playwright Maugham Swift Jolt 

 

What has happened [to] William Somerset Maugham, British playwright and author, who landed at New York over a week ago and gave out that he was on his way to Calgary, Alta., to study frontier life, cowboys, remittance men and generally the primeval way of this cow town in the wild and wooly west?

Mr. Maugham has had plenty of time to reach here. In fact, he was due about four days ago, but persistent search on the part of The News-Telegram has failed to locate him.

It is surmised that Mr. Maugham did reach here for he was fully determined to come. It is also surmised that he took one long, lingering look at this place and then fled.

Any man who gives out that he is desirous of studying the bad man in baggy chaps and sombrero in his native haunt and decides that Calgary is that haunt, has a perfect right to take one look and then retreat.

According to the story telegraphed from New York Mr. Maugham was coming for the purpose of securing material for a play. Presumably he wanted material of the boisterous, gunplay type.

The impression of a man who reaches Calgary from the east with the idea that this is a frontier town and that hard riding, hard drinking and straight shooting desperadoes gallop madly about the village trails, must be odd.

Getting the Perspective

For the purpose of getting an idea of how it must feel to enter Calgary with the impression that this is the original jumping off place, a News-Telegram man wandered down through the local depot, switched his ideas and then walked back into the city.

First he was very surprised at the size of the station. Then it occurred to him that a large station was needed for the purpose of taking supplies from the trains for the settlers int eh surrounding district.

Reaching the front of the station he was astonished by the sight of the C. P. R. hotel* that is being built just west of there. From gazing on it he turned and saw the King George hotel,** then the Grain Exchange building, then the C. P. R. department of natural resources building, the various hotels along Ninth avenue and the number of automobiles passing along that thoroughfare.

 

Wires Get Crossed

Hastily The News-Telegram man rushed back into the station.

"I say, my deah fellow," he said to the constable on duty, "how soon can I catch the train for Calgary? This must be Winnipeg or Minneapolis or Chicago, or some such bally place. Really, now it cawn't be Calgary, for Calgary is a frontier town."

The policeman regarded the newspaper man in disgust.

"No this is not Calgary; this is London, England," he replied.

Feeling affronted at the impossibility of the suggestion, the newspaper man, playing with the greatest fidelity his part of deluded newcomer, made for the King George hotel. There he asked for some stationery. Sure enough on it was "Calgary, Alta."

With one despairing glance up and down the street, in the hope of seeing at least one wild man shooting up the town, the newspaper man rushed back to the station. So strongly had the part he was playing impressed upon him that he was only prevented from buying a ticket back to London, England, by lack of funds.

Anyway, the newspaper man came to the conclusion that he could not blame Mr. Maugham for fleeing after a short examination of Calgary.

* Palliser Hotel
* Later renamed the Carlton Hotel, now the site of the EnCana building across 9th Avenue from the Palliser.