Maugham, W. Somerset

Cakes and Ale or the Skeleton in the Cupboard

London: Heinemann, 1930 After Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale is probably Maugham's finest novel, and certainly one of his most popular. Of it, Maugham wrote: "The book I like best is Cakes and Ale. It was an amusing book to write". Notes the author's biographer: "His [output] had its ups and downs. Cakes and Ale was one of the ups. He went on writing for another thirty years but never matched it in style or structure. It was a pity that the scandal surrounding the models for the main characters drew the attention of the literary community away from the book's real merit." Today, of course, it is those models who provide the fun: Driffield, the Grand Old Man of Letters (Thomas Hardy), and the writer-on-the-make Alroy Kear, a highly unflattering portrait of the novelist Hugh Walpole, who never forgave Maugham for writing his most malicious--but also his funniest--book First edition, first state with won instead of won't in line 14 of page 147. 12mo. 270 pp. Original publisher's blue cloth. Bookplate, in near fine dust jacket with two internal tape repairs. Stott A40

• USD 1,000.00 > 其他币种价格
• 订书号：: 214009

• 书商: James Cummins Bookseller Inc. (USA)