Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. George H. Doran Company, New York, NY, 1915.

Price: US$295.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: 8vo (20 x 14 cm). 648 pp. Green cloth covers with gilt panel and green titles to upper and gilt titles to spine. PO signature to front free endpaper, rest of text block unmarked. With "help" for helped on line 4 page 257 and no Doran monogram on verso of title page.

Seller: Liberty Book Store ABAA FABA IOBA, Jupiter, FL, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. OF HUMAN BONDAGE. George H. Doran Company, New York, 1915.

Price: US$450.00 + shipping

Description: Octavo, 648 pages. In Very Good condition. Full binding of green cloth with gilt lettering. Mild shelfwear. Rubbing along spine and edges. Water damage to bottom edge and partial top edge corner of textblock, and age-toning throughout. Shelved in Case 13. Second state of first printing, with the word "helped" corrected on page 257, and without publisher's seal on copyright page. This copy of the American edition preceded the UK edition by one day. 1371296. Shelved Dupont Bookstore. First American Edition, First Printing, Second State.

Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. George R. Doran, New York, 1915.

Price: US$575.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: 1st edition of the author’s best-known work, preceding the UK edition by one day. Second state in green boards with the word “helped” corrected on page 257, and absent the Doran seal on the title page. Mild fold to bottom front corner, reading crease on the spine, with the gold stamping on the front cover and spine bright and intact, thus this copy is very good+ absent the elusive dw. The 1934 film version propelled Bette Davis’ career to stardom.

Seller: Tom Davidson, Bookseller, Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. George Doran, New York, 1915.

Price: US$900.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: Original publisher's green cloth stamped in black. First edition with no Doran monogram on the copyright page. The book is in great shape. Binding is tight, with minor wear to the top and bottom spine. Clean pages with a very light pencil from prior owner indicating date of 1/25/22. No other marks or bookplates in the book. The Modern Library ranked Of Human Bondage No. 66 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Seller: Barberry Lane Booksellers, Bar Harbor, ME, U.S.A.

MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET.. Of Human Bondage. New York: George H. Doran, 1915, 1915.

Price: US$1000.00 + shipping

Description: First Edition; first issue; preceding the English edition. Back hinge mended; a very good copy. All books described as first editions are first printings unless otherwise noted.

Seller: Peter L. Stern & Co., Inc, Newton, MA, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. George H. Doran Company, New York, 1915.

Price: US$1500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: First edition, first printing, first state, preceding the British edition. Lacking the publisher's monogram on the copyright page and with "help" on page 257, line 4. Very Good+ with slight darkening to spine, light wear to cloth at extremities. Pages lightly toned, several with corner creases and a few short edge-tears. A nice copy of what is widely considered to be the author's best work.

Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.

MAUGHAM (W. Somerset). Of Human Bondage. George H. Doran Co, New York, 1915.

Price: US$1500.00 + shipping

Description: 648pp, octavo green cloth with auther/title stamped on spine and on front board in bright yellow. First edition, First state, with fourth line on page 257 reading "help" instead of "helped" which was corrected in later printings. Owner name and bookseller's mark present on FFEP. tight binding, clean throughout, edgewear, tops of pages 585-599 slightly torn/crumpled although not into text, Very Good

Seller: COLLINS BOOKS, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. George H. Doran Company, New York, 1915.

Price: US$2750.00 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: First Edition, First Printing without the Doran monogram printed on the copyright page. The book is in great shape. The binding is tight, with minor wear to the panels. The pages are clean with NO writing, marks or bookplates in the book. A lovely copy of this TRUE FIRST EDITION bound in the original publisher's green cloth.

Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. OF HUMAN BONDAGE [with T.L.s. from Theodore Dreiser]. , 1915.

Price: US$2750.00 + shipping

Description: [with letter from Theodore Dreise] New York: George H. Doran Company, n.d. [1915]. Original green cloth. First Edition, published one day earlier than Heinemann's edition in London. This was Maugham's famed autobiographical novel about Philip Carey, who has a club foot and who attends King's School, Tercanbury [Maugham had a stammer and attended King's School, Canterbury]; who rejects the idea of the ministry and who studies in Heidelberg and later becomes a doctor [like Maugham]; who becomes obsessed with a vulgar waitress, Mildred Rogers, who goes to a bad end [cf. Liza of Lambeth], etc. But the novel succeeds because of its unflinching honesty and its devastating account of loneliness, the most tragic of all human conditions. [CGEL] This copy is in the later state, with the error on the fourth line of p. 257 corrected (also on lighter weight paper). The binding is correspondingly later state, with the stamping in black rather than in gilt (due to the onset of the war). Condition is fine save for the slightest of wear at the lower corners of the spine. Due to its size (648 pp), this seems to be a tough volume to find in this condition. Toole Stott A22 (also Appendix note 20 and Supplement pp 6-7); a Modern Library 100 Selection. Housed in a morocco-backed clamshell case. Loosely inserted is a typed letter signed, to "Mr. Maugham" from the American author Theodore Dreiser, dated Jan. 13, 1921 (and with a return address of P. O. Box 181, Los Angeles). Dreiser types Your invitation reaches me too late for acceptance this week. Any evening after Tuesday next, if convenient to you will be agreeable to me. Thank you for for [sic] your interest and your tender. I hope that your stay here will prove pleasing to you. [signed,] Theodore Dreiser [and, in Dreiser's hand as a P.S.:] Give me 24 hours lee way A bit of background. The appearance of Maugham's Bildungsroman in 1915 was poorly timed. There was enough misery in British homes without his contribution, and it was hardly light reading for men in the trenches. The critics seemed to think that Maugham had let down his public in their hour of need. The novel did not fare much better in America. Of Human Bondage was rescued by one influential critic, who was also the leading American realistic novelist -- Theodore Dreiser. Writing in the December 25, 1915 issue of the New Republic under the title "As a Realist Sees It," Dreiser called the book a work of genius [comparing it to a Beethoven symphony]. He laid it down, he said, feeling that it was "the perfect thing which we love and cannot understand, but which we are compelled to confess a work of art." Maugham, he went on, was "a great artist". The Dreiser review was a nice Christmas present for Maugham and gave Of Human Bondage the lift it needed. It has not been out of print since its publication and is still widely read. [Morgan] Five years later, at the time of this letter, Maugham and his companion Gerald Haxton had sailed from England in October 1920, en route to the Federated Malay States by way of New York and California. They arrived in Los Angeles in December, largely to meet with several screenwriters and producers (one of whom was young Samuel Goldwyn) in an effort to sell some scripts. Maugham also met Charlie Chaplin. Although we have not found documentation of any meeting between Maugham and Dreiser, it is apparent from this letter that Maugham used this opportunity to issue an invitation to meet with the man who five years earlier had "rescued" Of Human Bondage. It is quite likely, given the formality of this letter, that the two men had never met before this; and given the vastly different social circles the two men inhabited, it is likely that they never met on this occasion nor thereafter (-- in fact, it is likely that in this letter Dreiser is avoiding having to meet with Maugham and his gay partner). In any event, this is surely one of very few letters that ever passed between these two giants of literature; Dreiser's 1915 review has often been used as an Introduction, in subsequent editions. The letter is slightly browned, but is otherwise fine.

Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.

MAUGHAM, W. Somerset.. Of Human Bondage.. George H. Doran, New York, 1915.

Price: US$3000.00 + shipping

Description: 648 pp. 8vo, publisher's green cloth stamped in black. First edition; first issue with no Doran monogram on verso of title page and misprint in line 4 of p. 257. The binding appears to be a later or remainder binding, but is not described in Stott. Slight shelf wear to extremities of spine, water-spotting to front panel; some browning to preliminaries. Good to very good. Inscribed by Maugham on the front free endpaper in 1921.

Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.

Maugham, W. Somerset. OF HUMAN BONDAGE. George H. Doran Company, New York, 1915.

Price: US$3500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: 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. 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. 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.

Seller: Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.