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Maugham Reads Cakes and Ale
Home > Blog > Maugham Reads Cakes and Ale LPIt was some years ago that I came across this recording, but unfortunately it slipped through my fingers. Thus, it felt magical when it appeared again in front of my eyes, and I was able to proudly add it to my collection: Somerset Maugham in a Reading from Cakes and Ale December 18th 1953.Though it is a recording of a short extract from Cakes and Ale, it is delightful to hear Maugham's own voice as his alter ego commenting on human folly wi…A Maugham Conference!
Home > Blog > Most exciting news!I am totally an enthusiastic barker screaming on the top of my lungs:Hear hear! It finally happens! A conference dedicated to our beloved Maugham!How Good Maugham Was: A Critical Reassessment - An International Interdisciplinary Conference (13-14 March 2025), to be held in Le Mans, France, March next year.Deadline is September 15, 2024 for submitting abstracts. Plenty of time to let this sink in. March in France... all about Maugham...Maugham Estate News
Home > Blog >It has been a few years since my last post. Well, life happens. I would like to thank those readers who, during this hiatus, have continued to leave comments and be engaged with my content. Yours is like a distant voice, guiding me back to this shore.Although my collection activities have dawdled, they haven't halted completely. And I did gather some interesting pieces, which I hope to talk about in the future.First up, not that long ago I came across an interesting news…
W. Somerset Maugham's Personal Library - L'Invasion au Théâtre by Francis de Croisset
Home > Blog >L'invasion au théâtre by Francis de Croisset, 1928It was some time ago that I mentioned about a book I got while researching on W. Somerset Maugham's personal library at the Harry Ransom Center. Indeed, this is one of the most special items in my collection: L'invasion au théâtre by Francis de Croisset.The reason is that it once belonged to Maugham, or was intended to be for him, which I will explain later.
W. Somerset Maugham's Library at Harry Ransom Center: 143 Books
Home > Blog >Somerset Maugham's library at Harry Ransom Center As promised, in this post I will continue my last post of W. Somerset Maugham's personal library housed in Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. It is better late than never. And as I mentioned in the last post, this search was conducted in May 2017. Although I doubt the collection has changed much, I would like to point out that I have not revisited it and am not likely to do it in the near future to rep…
W. Somerset Maugham's Library at Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
Home > Blog >Maugham's Library at Harry Ransom CenterFinally I find the time to have a closer look at a collection that has been fascinating me: Harry Ransom Center's collection of W. Somerset Maugham's books, specifically Maugham's personal library. First, a little background. Harry Ransom Center (HRC) is one of the research centres at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). It is most famous for its collections of twentieth- and twenty-first-century British and American…
Maugham on a Chinese screen
Home > Blog >W. Somerset Maugham went to China in September 1919, a trip that lasted for six months. Though he had already travelled widely at the age of 45, it was the first time he set foot on a completely alien culture, the Far East that had fascinated him since boyhood. This experience proved to be fruitful and left him a strong impression. From this trip, Maugham produced 3 works: a play (East of Suez), a novel (The Painted Veil), and lastly, a travel book (On a Chinese Screen).This…
Analysis of East of Suez (1922) by W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >East of Suez stage scene 1, from Basil Dean's Seven Ages
East of Suez. A Play in Seven Scenes. London: Heinemann, 1922.I am at the moment a little bit upset with myself because it seems that with years I haven't grown wiser. Last night I finished reading East of Suez, and I had been all excited waiting for the first free moment to write about it. Industrious as I always am, I went to have a look at Mander and Michenson's Theatrical Companion to Maugham, to see abo…
La passe dangereuse - French Edition of The Painted Veil
Home > Blog >La passe dangereuse & La comédienne
La passe dangereuse. Trans. Madame E.-R. Blanchet. [Paris]: Hachette, 1964I am going to talk about an unassuming little book, by which I was very pleasantly surprised. Some time ago I showed a French edition of La comédienne, a translation of Theatre, which I received as a gift. The present book, La passe dangereuse, has a different publisher, issued for a different club, but the design resembles almost exactly as La comédienne. What i…
The Sacred Flame (1928): A Story About Love. Analysis and First Edition
Home > Blog >The Sacred Flame, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928
The Sacred Flame. A Play in Three Acts. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1928.Reading the play The Sacred Flame was a curious experience. I feel sorry that I had some ideas of what it was about, which thus destroyed the suspense, and I can't say whether I would have guessed it right if I were not to know anything about it. However, it wouldn't be possible to discuss the play if I don't talk about what the…
W. Somerset Maugham's 143rd Birthday: Reading "The Three Fat Women of Antibes"
Home > Blog >Today is the 143rd anniversary of W. Somerset Maugham's birth. As in the past three years, I celebrate this occasion with a video. This year I have prepared one with Maugham reading his short story "The Three Fat Women of Antibes." This is the first audio recording I have of Maugham reading his stories, and it was the first time I listened to his voice. I stumbled upon this LP by a happy accident in my early collecting days and imagine the thrill! I had no LP …
"The Princess and the Nightingale" (1922) – W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >The Princess and the Nightingale, 1922In this post, I am going to talk about a most unusual story among W. Somerset Maugham's works, first published as "The Princess and the Nightingale." It has a curious publication history and is one of a kind in Maugham's œvre. Maugham's repertoire is quite wide. He wrote novels, plays, short stories, essays, criticism, reviews, autobiographies, prefaces, letters to the editor, biographical portraits, screenplays (th…
W. Somerset Maugham's Introduction to Bruno Frank's Stories
Home > Blog >Somerset Maugham on Bruno Frank
Bruno, Frank. The Magician and Other Stories. Introduction by W. Somerset Maugham, The Viking Press, 1946.This post is about an introduction W. Somerset Maugham wrote for a posthumous collection of short stories by Bruno Frank, which has not been registered in published bibliography or collected in other publications of our writer, or at least as far as I know. This piece of writing isn't mentioned in Stott, or collected in John Whitehead&#…
The Maugham Reader (1950) – The Villa Mauresque Edition
Home > Blog >The Maugham Reader - The Villa Mauresque Edition
The Maugham Reader with an Introduction by Glenway Wescott (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1950)This is a recent acquisition, which I never would have thought of buying. It is a collection of W. Somerset Maugham's works, an assortment of novels, short stories, plays, and non-fiction pieces. Certainly it would make nice reading, and it would have worked quite well for a long train trip in the old days. Heavy but not too …
Analysis: "A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit" (1942) by W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit - Somerset Maugham
"A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit." This Week Magazine, 4 January, 1942.I came across a most interesting piece recently, now finally I have it in front of me. A short story written by W. Somerset Maugham called "A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit." You wouldn't find it anywhere else under that title. It was not recorded by Stott, but it was collected in John Whitehead's A Traveller in Romance. Uncollected Wr…
Nordrach-on-Dee Destroyed - W. Somerset Maugham's Sanatorium
Home > Blog > © Copyright Alan Findlay and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons LicenceYesterday in the news was the destruction of one of the historic landmarks of some significance in Maugham studies. Glen O'Dee, known in Maugham's time as Nordrach-on-Dee, was burnt down by "wilful fire" according to the BBC. The building had a typical history of the grand construction of the last centuries. It was built at the turn of the 20th century as a sanatorium. Howev…
The Magician (1908) – The Colonial Edition
Home > Blog >The Magician (1908) colonial edition - WS Maugham
The Magician (London: Heinemann, 1908)My fifth copy of The Magician. Yes, incredible. What is special about this one is that it is a Heinemann colonial edition, which I haven't seen before. I don't mean it is unknown, just that I personally haven't seen one before, and you can imagine how thrilled I am!Stott mentions this edition in his bibliography, but its description is a bit different from my copy.I do like thi…
Analysis of "A Traveller in Romance" (1909): A Narrative of Strangeness
Home > Blog >Printers' Pie 1909
"A Traveller in Romance." Printers' Pie (1909): 97-100."A Traveller in Romance," the very phrase must have caught John Whitehead's fancy when he published his volume of uncollected writings by W. Somerset Maugham under the same title. The story was written in 1909 when Maugham was thirty-five, published in quite an unlikely venue: Printers' Pie.Printers' Pie was an annual publication (shortly I will talk more about th…
Far and Wide. Nine Novels (The Companion Book Club) - W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >Far and Wide, 2 vols. 1955
Far and Wide. Nine Novels by W. Somerset Maugham Selected by the Author. 2 vols. London: The Companion Book Club, 1955. Besides first editions, from time to time I get drawn to some copies that may have nothing special "bibliographically," but just that they are pleasing to the eye. It is an aesthetic pleasure that is hard to explain.Such is what I felt when I lay eyes on these two volumes: Far and Wide published by The Companion Book Club…
Philip's Club Foot – Which Foot Art Thou?
Home > Blog >Of Human Bondage dust jacket, Heinemann
Of Human Bondage (London: Heinemann, 1940)This question has been in the back of my mind ever since I attended the dramatic adaptation of Of Human Bondage by Vern Thiessen and Albert Schultz.I noticed something odd but couldn't point out what it was until I got home, when it was too late to check. It was puzzling to see that, if I remember correctly, Philip Carey's club foot was the right foot.Philip's club foot on the wrong …