Lady Frederick

This post is about the very important Maugham play, "Lady Frederick" without which this blog wouldn't exist. In 1907 after the novel "The Bishop's Apron" (1906, Chapman and Hall) failed to be a hit, and after Maugham was at the last of his money, he was going to quit writing. He was getting ready to take some brush-up medical classes and become a doctor, which is what he was trained and certified to be. Well, Fate had other ideas. A stage producer had to cancel the play he was to bring out that 1907 season and was rummaging through a myriad of manuscripts sent to him by literary agents. Among those was, of course, "Lady Frederick". He put the play on. He figured it would just be temporary until the former play got worked out. It became a huge hit. And this is how Maugham became famous. He then had 4 hit plays running in London at the same time. His old publisher William Heinemann published the novels "The Explorer" (January 1908) and "The Magician" (October 1908). The rest, as they say, is history. If it weren't for "Lady Frederick" none of us living would have ever heard of  W. Somerset Maugham. This is why I chose to purchase a true first edition of this play. While it was performed first in 1907, it wasn't published in book form until 1912. Only 500 were printed! This one was on eBay for a very long time, surprisingly. It was for a decent price, at $120. Luckily, for me, it was still available at that price. I just received it recently.