Other phrases you'll see when collecting Maugham is 1st American, 1st British, and true 1st. I mentioned that Maugham chiefly had two publishers - one (Doran then Doubleday Doran) in America, and one (William Heinemann) in England. The true 1st is whichever publisher released the book first. So, unless the seller is in error, when they list a Maugham book as a 1st American, or 1st British it's usually because the book came out first in the other country. When I first started collecting I assumed, since Maugham was British, the British 1st was always the true 1st. This is not the case with Maugham's most famous novel, "Of Human Bondage" (1915). The American 1st was released one day before the British 1st, making the Doran edition the true 1st. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was before Doran made his 1st edition, 1st printings distinguishable with his "GDH" stamp directly under the copyright notice. So, in the second photo in this post, you'll see a typo (which I highlighted in Photoshop - not on the actual book!). This typo on page 257 is what you need to see before you know you're buying a true 1st, 1st of this great novel. I have had a corrected 2nd printing (also from 1915) with the gold lettering on the spine, and gold knock-out lettering on the cover with that particular typo corrected. The 2nd printing still has other typos though, but they show up in both printings. It's not until the 2nd printing by Doran in 1919 with the spine lettering in black with black knock-out lettering on the front cover that mostly all these typos are corrected. [Thanks to "Anonymous" from the My Maugham Collection site for helping me with that research.]
The cheapest copy I see available is on eBay for $1200. [ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Of-Human-Bondage-W-SOMERSET-MAUGHAM-First-Edition-1st-Issue-1915-/321818340163?hash=item4aedde2b43 ] That copy is in better shape than mine which I got for around $700. There is one in the best possible shape for $2500 on eBay as well. If you're a serious collector, don't buy an "early" edition or the British Heinemann 1st - you'll be wasting your money. Don't be fooled that just because a seller is charging a lot of money for a book that it is valuable. If you're NOT a serious collector, you'd be better off buying one of the fine reprints put out by Grossett and Dunlap if you can find one at a decent price which you can do if you look hard enough (theirs is the one with the engraving of the man in chains on the front cover), or better yet if you can find a Sun Dial Press printing WITH the yellow dust-jacket, that one is really nice. You can find the Sun Dial one without the dust jacket for about $2.00, and with the dust-jacket maybe for around $10-$15.
I'd like a UK first though, with the dust jacket... However, I found, when I was working on all OHB editions, the same dust jacket (with the wrong foot) was used in a later edition. In the very distant future I'd like to have the illustrated editions too. I'd like, I'd like, I begin to sound like a child. :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's a post I want to do at some point about sentiment and how that can affect one's Maugham collection. I prefer the Heinemann 1953 edition of "The Casuarina Tree" with the dust-jacket, because it was the second Maugham book I read, and the first one that wasn't posthumous. The look, feel, and smell of it take me back to summer 1991.
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