William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930sHe was born on the 25 of January 1874 in Paris France. He died on December 16, 1965, in Nice.Maugham was orphaned at the age of 10; he was brought up by an uncle. After a year at Heidelberg, he entered St. Thomas Medical School, London, and qualified asa doctor in 1897. He drew upon his experiences as an obstetrician in his firstnovel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), and its success, though small, encouraged him toabandon medicine. He traveled to Spain and Italy and in 1908 achieved a theatrical triumph in 1928, bought a villa on Cape Ferrat in the south of France, which became his permanent home.A short summary of the plot is as follows: The narrator, a book writer, recognizes a woman with whom he had lunch years ago. He suddenly remembers an incident involving this woman from a few years ago.She wrote to him about his books and she wanted to meet him for a luncheon. He was shocked at the time because she had picked a expensive restaurant and him only had a few francs to survive for the month. She starts ordering expensive dish after another and she leaves him broke. He then gets his revenge by seeing that she now weighs a 140kg.The narration of the short story is the first person. This is shown "Did I remember?","My heart sank", "as for myself, I chose the cheapest dish". This shows us his standpoint and we are moved to feel the same emotions or at least sympathize with the speaker on his situation of having a lunch with an old woman who eats him out of house and home.The short story is divided into three parts which are the exposition, the story and the climax. The exposition being the start where he looks back in memory 20 years in the past. The story being the luncheon and the climax being the woman's increase in weight.There is a lot of irony in the luncheon as the woman repeatedly says she only eats one thing and it is only something small, but to the contrary, she eats 5 dishes. The word luncheon also means to eat something small.The theme of the short story is appearance versus reality. It is first shown as he thinks the woman is much older than he though and then how she says she only eats one thing. The other example is how she said that she is a fan but she is only after a free lunch.