Inscribed first US edition, first issue of this semi-autobiographical classic, which predates the English edition by one day; adapted for the big screen on three separate occasions.
Very good plus.
Price: $3,500.00
"It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories."
OF HUMAN BONDAGE was an early career work in which, "we have nearly all the motifs that reappear in the later Maugham," notes Alexander Boyle, including his habit of writing parts of himself into many of his books: OF HUMAN BONDAGE is certainly his most autobiographical. Its first film adaptation, pre-code in 1934, starred Leslie Howard and a very slinky and emotionally raw Bette Davis. It was Davis's first large-scale success, and though she was passed over for the Best Actress Oscar that year, the role established her as a star.
This copy features interesting bookish provenance: Maugham inscribed it to Ohio bookseller Paul North, and it contains the bookplate of Wallace Hugh Cathcart, Cleveland bookseller, philanthropist, book collector, and one of the founders of the American Booksellers Association.
Read more: Alexander Boyle, "William Somerset Maugham," The Irish Monthly, August 1949; Raymond Toole Stott, Maughamania, item 14.
New York: George H. Doran Company, (1915). 7.75'' x 5.25''. Original green cloth binding with gilt lettering to front board and spine. With "help" corrected to "helped" (Stott's second state). 648 pages. Inscribed by Maugham to "Paul North" on front flyleaf. Pictorial bookplate of Wallace Hugh Cathcart tipped onto front pastedown. Small bookseller's label from "McClelland & Co." in Columbus, Ohio to front pastedown. Binding with some edgewear/scuffing, mild soiling to top edge, faint trace of old touchup to spine head. Both hinges cracking, but sound. A clean copy.
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