Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

39pp. and a typed title, on rectos online, 4to, brass brads, in a blue paper folder; folding chemise and case. NUMEROUS EMENDATIONS, INCLUDING SIX INSERTED PARAGRAPHS IN MAUGHAM'S HAND, ca 1944 (see note). Provenance: Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), American author; a gift to Stephen Longstreet (1907-2002), American writer and artist (pencil note in his hand on first blank: "a gift to Stephen Longstreet from Christopher Isherwood, a MS hand corrected by Somerset Maugham c 1944"); Heritage Book Shop (2007); acquired by the present owner Craig V. Showalter (bookplate).

ISHERWOOD-LONGSTREET COPY.

Maugham wrote the short story “A Night in June” in the late 1920s or early 1930s, but its macabre nature prevented publication. He later expanded it into a short novel, which appeared as a serial in Redbook Magazine (Feb.–Apr. 1940) under the title The Villa on the Hill, and was subsequently published by Doubleday (New York) and Heinemann (London) in 1941 as Up at the Villa. Several writers attempted to adapt the work for film without success. Among them was Christopher Isherwood, who was given the manuscript—together with Maugham’s holograph suggestions for turning it into a musical—after MGM acquired the film rights in 1945. It was not until 2000 that the story was finally adapted into a film of the same name, starring Sean Penn and Kristin Scott Thomas.