The Making of a Saint 1966 Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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dust jacket binding title page copyright
Record Number MMC_N_MS1966MSG
Title The Making of a Saint : A Romance of Mediaeval Italy
Title - Alternative The Making of a Saint
Creator W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
Contributor Gilbert James (illustrator)
John Farrar (foreword)
H. Lawrence Hoffman (jacket design)
Format Print Book
Genre / Form Novel
Publisher New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date 1966
Language English and Italian (epigraph)
Physical Description pp. v–xxiv Foreword, 4 illustrations, pp. 11–5 Introduction (part of the novel), pp 17–351 main text
Identifier - Edition Reprint from The St. Botolph Society (Boston) edition (1922) under the same title (Stott, p. 23)
Identifier - Cover Colour (Approximate) #AF183A (Cardinal) with gold letter WSM on front, spine please see photo
Identifier - Dust Jacket Pictorial design with a shield, background in white
Description - Abstract "This Renaissance tale was Somerset Maugham's second novel. It was first published in 1898, when the author was twenty-three, and has been out of print and practically forgotten for years. Shortly after its publication, Maugham made every effort to suppress it, resorting to legal means in England and pleas and threats in the United States. The history of this suppression, which might well be the plot of one of Maugham's own novels, is told in the preface to this new edition.
"Maugham's first book, Liza of Lambeth, was based on his experiences as an intern working among the London poor. The Making of a Saint is a historical romance, a drama of Italy in the time of Lorenzo de' Medici. The title is a grim joke; the saint was a soldier of fortune, a man of many love affairs, who became involved in a conspiracy against Count Girolamo of Romagna. In 1898 The Bookman, in a review of the novel, stated, in part: 'We are shown, in strong and bold outline, Italy as it was at the end of the fifteenth century, when intrigue and assassination were recognised political methods, when no cruelty was too barbarous to be practised on an enemy, when women had apparently little of either faith or tenderness, and when those who escaped a violent death were ready, when they had had their day, to turn to the brown habit and hempen cord.'
"In The Making of a Saint the reader will find the gusto and early exuberance of one of the outstanding writers of our time, as well as a thumping good story" (from dust jacket).
Notes Although Stott doesn't give this edition an entry, he does mention it, especially the foreword by Ferrar.
Subject Italy -- Fiction
Provenance Wheeler Library, Otero Junior College, La Junta, Colorado
Cost US$15 in 2013
US$4.95 in 1966
Links Download/borrow various editions

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