MAUGHAM, W. Somerset.
Penelope: A Comedy in Three Acts.
London: William Heinemann, 1912.
$975.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-152494
+$500
First Edition of W. Somerset Maugham's Penelope; Inscribed by Him
First edition of this greatly popular and successful comedy, its heroine a clever wife who wins back her straying husband not by reproach but by cheerfully encouraging the affair until it collapses of its own accord. Duodecimo, original red cloth lettered in black. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For his good friend Roy Carruthers, the grateful author, W. Somerset Maugham." In near fine condition, bookplates to the front pastedown.
Penelope, a comedy in three acts, was among the run of hits with which W. Somerset Maugham dominated the Edwardian stage. First produced at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1909 as a vehicle for the actress Marie Tempest, it presents a wife who, on discovering her husband's infidelity, disarms it by refusing to play the injured party, instead throwing the lovers together so relentlessly that the romance withers, a worldly and characteristically Maughamian treatment of marriage and self-interest. It was written during the extraordinary period, beginning in 1908, when Maugham had four plays running simultaneously in the West End. William Somerset Maugham (1874 to 1965) trained as a physician before turning to writing and became one of the most popular and highest paid authors of his age, the creator of Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale, and The Razor's Edge, as well as the Ashenden stories drawn from his own service as a British intelligence agent during the First World War.
Penelope: A Comedy in Three Acts.
$975.00
In Stock
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