Remembering Mr. Maugham

New York: Atheneum, 1966. 1st/1st. VG/VG. Stated First Edition. First printing. Book is tight and square with solid hinges and clean boards. Light bumps to top front corners. Textblock is clean with no writing, bookplate or markings and not BCE, ex-library or remaindered. Page corner creases to pages 108-110. Dust jacket is unclipped ($5.95) with light wear to corners (see photos). Protected in a new Brodart Mylar cover.

Garson Kanin was a copious note-taker — much to Maugham's delight — of conversations, impressions, and ideas imparted when the two were together. Although his junior by about 40 years, Kanin became Maugham's perfect audience, recognizing his creative genius yet also aware of Maugham's peculiar quirks and habits. Written as a non-linear journal, the book becomes "…a treasury of Somerset Maugham's candid opinions, attitudes, and tastes, this book abounds in off-the-cuff recollections of the past and the circumstances under which he wrote his best-known stories and novels. His lively, often impudent speech is enriched by descriptions of the Old Party in action, his dramatic presence at parties of the international set, and his lavish life at the Villa Mauresque, where Kanin and his wife, the distinguished actress Ruth Gordon, were welcome guests. Nearly every page glimmers with celebrated names--Ethel Barrymore, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Lee Shubert, Laurence Olivier, Shaw, Picasso, Claudette Colbert, Harpo Marx, Gene Tunney, Moss Hart, Frank Sinatra, to mention a few. Unconventional in approach, this volume gives added dimension to the life and works of an enduring literary figure." – Book jacket flap. Forward by Noel Coward.