"UNIQUE IN HIS OEUVRE"

MAUGHAM, W. Somerset. Strictly Personal. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1941. Octavo, original red beveled buckram, black and gilt spine label, top edge gilt; original slipcase. $800.

Signed limited first edition of this gripping non-fiction account of Maugham's flight from France in the early days of World War II, number 24 of 515 copies signed by Maugham, with photographic frontispiece portrait of the author.

"In Strictly Personal, Maugham told of his own adventures in the early part of the Second World War. It is a first-person narrative of a kind unique in his oeuvre, written out of the direct pressure of events" (Curtis, The Pattern of Maugham, 214). This special limited edition was issued two days before the American trade edition. Strictly Personal is one of only 12 Maugham titles first published in America. Owner's booklabel; bookseller's label.

Light edge-wear to slipcase. Cloth spine mildly sunned, label and gilt bright. An about-fine signed copy.