Chronicle No. 79 · Places

The Manager Who Tried to Move a Dying Guest

Somerset Maugham lay in a room at the Oriental in Bangkok with malaria, and overheard the manager in the corridor explaining that he could not be allowed to die there.

The Oriental opened on the bank of the Chao Phraya in Bangkok in 1876, run in its early years by Danish seafarers — among them Hans Niels Andersen, who went on to found the East Asiatic Company. The two-storey building that survives from 1887 is now called the Authors' Wing.

In 1923 Somerset Maugham arrived, travelling through Siam, and came down with malaria.

Lying in his room with a high fever, he heard voices in the corridor. It was the manager, talking to the doctor. She was explaining, with some force, that she could not have a guest dying in her hotel and that he would have to be moved.

He recovered, and he wrote the scene down. It is the most repeated story the hotel has, and the hotel repeats it itself.

He was in company. Joseph Conrad stayed in 1888 while waiting to take command of the Otago. Noël Coward, Graham Greene and James Michener followed. Their names are on the suites, and the Authors' Lounge still serves tea under the fans in the old wing.

Lesson: A hotel remembers its guests; the guests remember how they were handled. The Oriental now names its suites after a man a manager of it once tried to move out.

The Authors’ Wing — the surviving 1887 building of the Oriental, Bangkok.
The Authors’ Wing — the surviving 1887 building of the Oriental, Bangkok. — Wikimedia Commons · Chainwit. · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Authors’ Lounge, where the hotel sells tea on the strength of its guest list.
The Authors’ Lounge, where the hotel sells tea on the strength of its guest list. — Wikimedia Commons · Chainwit. · CC BY-SA 4.0
W. Somerset Maugham, who survived both the malaria and the management.
W. Somerset Maugham, who survived both the malaria and the management. — Wikimedia Commons · Carl Van Vechten · Public domain