Of Human Bondage
Price: $650.00
Schwabe, Randolph. Hard Cover. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1936. First Illustrated Edition. Fine / Dust Jacket Included.
With 24 collotype illustrations by Randolph Schwabe including a frontispiece captioned "she yielded quite silently." First illustrated edition, first printing. One of 751 copies signed by W. Somerset Maugham and Randolph Schwabe on the limitation page, this being number 205. Publisher's maize buckram cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in gilt, beveled edges, top edge gilt, and rag paper; with the original cream-colored dust jacket split in two parts, with most of the spine missing except for a fragment of it; in the publisher's brick-red slipcase, with paper label featuring frontispiece illustration affixed to front panel. Fine book; very good slipcase, with wear to edges (some separation to edges near mouth of slipcase), and some soiling to titles label. Overall, a remarkably well-preserved copy of the book. Stott A21d. Of Human Bondage is a bildungsroman featuring the protagonist Philip Carey, a club-footed orphan who is raised by his religious aunt and uncle. From a young age, Carey yearns for adventure and moves to Paris to pursue a career in art. Subsequently, he moves to London to study medicine, where he meets the androgynous Mildred, with whom he begins a torturous love affair that will forever alter the course of his life. A strongly autobiographical novel (Maugham's formative insecurity was a stammer rather than a clubfoot), Of Human Bondage is considered Maugham's masterpiece. The book was adapted into three films in 1934, 1946, and 1964, starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker, and Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak as Philip and Mildred, respectively. Item #WSM037
