Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

8vo. (First and last leaf rehinged.) Original printed wrappers (restoration along spine and fore-corners); folding chemise and cloth slipcase. Provenance: Craig V. Showalter (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION, SEPARATE ISSUE, ONE OF 150 COPIES, printed for Maugham in advance of the Fortnightly Review, where it was to appear as a supplement, to sell as a memento on the opening night at the Imperial Theatre, Westminster.

INSCRIBED BY MAUGHAM on the opening page: "Probably the scarcest of all my books, W. Somerset Maugham."

In his preface to Frederick Bason’s bibliography (1931), Maugham reflected on the fate of A Man of Honour, remarking: “But there is another little book of mine which must be scarcer still [than the first edition of Liza of Lambeth]. It is the paper bound edition of A Man of Honour, which was issued by Messrs Chapman and Hall. This was a play published in The Fortnightly Review by the late W. L. Courtney, who thought well of it, and at my urgent request the publishers bound up a few copies of the sheets, two hundred and fifty, I think, for sale in the theatre during the two performances which the Stage Society gave it. I am afraid the venture did not profit them, for I doubt whether fifty copies were sold, and I suppose the rest have long been pulped." Bason himself noted the extreme scarcity of the play, describing A Man of Honour as “one of Maugham’s rarest works and… his scarcest play” (see Bason, pp.10; 53). Stott A6a.