Of Human Bondage.
MAUGHAM, W. Somerset.
Of Human Bondage.
Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage; from the library of American Actor Zachary Scott
New York: The Sun Dial Press, 1915.
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Item Number: 114107
Early printing of Maugham’s masterpiece. Octavo, original cloth. From the library of American actor Zachary Scott, the first husband of Elaine Scott who later married writer John Steinbeck. Scott is best remembered for his many roles as villains and “mystery men” in dozens of musical comedies, film noirs, and psychological thrillers throughout the 1940s and 50s including Hollywood Canteen, The Unfaithful, Shotgun, Man in the Shadow, and The Young One. In very good condition with Scott’s bookplate to the pastedown.
“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.
