Books

First edition, first printing which includes list of other � Works� by Maugham facing half-title, plus publisher� s ad page for works by other authors on half-title verso, with the misprint on page 257, line 4 ("help") of Maugham� s masterpiece. Octavo, original cloth. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom clamshell box. An exceptional example. � Maugham� s longest and most ambitious novel, in which � fact and fiction are inextricably mixed,� draws heavily upon the author� s own youth, with circumstances and names scarcely altered� (Parker, 63). � As early as 1911 [Maugham] had retired temporarily from the theatre to work on his long novel, Of Human Bondage. He was to correct the proofs under the admiring eyes of Desmond MacCarthy in a small hotel at Malo, near Dunkirk; the two men were drivers in an ambulance unit for which they had volunteered at the outbreak of war in 1914� � Of Human Bondage was published in 1915. It was less noticed in wartime London than in New York, where Theodore Dreiser reviewed it with enthusiasm. It remains Maugham� s most impressive literary work, and by the time of his death [1965] was said to have sold ten million copies� (DNB). It was the basis for the 1934 film directed by John Cromwell starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

Of Human Bondage is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is a semi-autobiographical story about the life of a young man, Philip Carey, who struggles to find his identity and place in the world.