Tips on Maugham collecting.

Before I get into the 'meat and potatoes' of this site, I figured I start out with some tips about collecting. After viewing other people's Maugham collections, I see that, to an extent, they reflect on what that collector's preferences are. It might be important for one collector to have 1st editions of all of Maugham's plays, for example, while a different collector may put more value on some other aspect of Maugham-collecting and buy cheap editions - even mass-market paperbacks - of the plays. The thing that intrigued me most back in 2001, and what got me into Maugham-collecting was his early works (1897-1908). I thought it would be really cool to have those rarest 1st editions of his early novels - some only having a print-run of 1200, with no second printings! Your Maugham collection is most likely going to be a reflection of your personal tastes, knowledge about the editions (which I will help you with), and your financial well-being or at least how much you're willing to spend on a book. This brings me to my first tip:

1.) While some later 1st editions may be reasonably-priced, due to the fact they had first print-runs in the hundred-thousands, you can't expect to have a decent-to-superb Maugham collection without spending money. My friend and I have noticed the prices in general have gone up in recent years and continue to do so. This brings me to me second tip:

2.) Look for bargains. Cruise sites like ABE books, eBay, and Alibris to find the best deals. Do this weekly, or every couple of days if you're looking for something specific and are ready to buy. This can be a bit time-consuming, but that's what hobbies are. My wife and I were just looking at Maugham firsts which I bought for a fraction of what was being ASKED for them. This brings me to my third tip:

3.) You can in fact haggle the prices down in most cases. On eBay some sellers give you a chance to make them an offer for less than their asking price. But you can do this on other sites as well. Over the years I saved around a thousand dollars doing this on ABE. I once bought a 1st edition, 1st printing of "Liza of Lambeth" (1897 - Maugham's first ever published work) for $800 which was listed for $1100 on ABE.  It won't work every time of course.

4.) Never immediately trust an online seller that what you're buying is a 1st edition, 1st printing without photos of the copyright page, or in the case of Maugham's early works other '1st, 1st' identifiers (such as publisher's ads, or in Liza of Lambeth's case you want brackets around the "all rights reserved" statement, or with "Of Human Bondage the typo 'help' where it should be 'helped' on line 4 of page 257). We'll get into those in more depth as I provide information on each book in my collection individually.

5.) Either buy or build yourself a book case and dedicate it solely to your Maugham collection. You'll need it. There are so very many books to collect.