Printed Books & Early American Photography, including Selections from the Larry Ness Collection

8vo. Original pink cloth gilt (spotting to covers); dust jacket (spine toned and chipped with losses at ends). Provenance: Martin Secker, publisher (inscription); Craig V. Showalter (bookplate).

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. MARTIN SECKER'S COPY, INSCRIBED on the front free endpaper by the publisher, which reads in part: "Shortly after publication here it was withdrawn and the remaining stock destroyed following a threat of legal proceedings for libel and damages from solicitors acting for William Somerset Maugham. Martin Secker."

Gin and Bitters was published in America in 1931, a thinly veiled attack on Somerset Maugham via its central character, Leverson Hurle, a famous novelist who had travelled extensively in the Far East, the title of the book itself an overt pastiche of Cakes and Ale. The book was published pseudonymously, not long after Cakes and Ale, and many initially assumed that it was written by Hugh Walpole in retaliation for Maugham's caricaturing of him in that work. Walpole immediately wrote Maugham denying this, and it seems the latter was relatively untroubled by the publication. However, when it was announced that the work was to be published in the UK, initially by Somerset Maugham's own publishers Heinemann, then Martin Secker, Maugham took the advice of his brother Frederic and issued a writ which was brought to bear upon the publishers, and the book was withdrawn, despite considerable alteration by Mordaunt. Mordaunt published the work under a new title, Full Circle, and made changes to soften the characterization of Maugham for the English edition, but it was still considered libelous, and the publisher withdrew it, "but only after a number of copies had been distributed" (Stott F30).

[With:] MORDAUNT. Gin and Bitters. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931. 8vo. Original gilt-lettered black cloth (gilt rubbed completely from spine, vertical split with separation along spine). Provenance: Martin Secker (bookplate and note in his hand on the front pastedown); Craig V. Showalter (bookplate). FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY MORDAUNT AND GIVEN TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THIS BOOK. Mordaunt inscribes the title-page: "This is a first edition copy and must not be taken away from home, Elinor Mordaunt." Secker writes a note on the front pastedown: "Given to me by the author, August 1931, Martin Secker."