Stott's Bibliography (1973): A Critical Examination

The book in question is apparently the most comprehensive work of its kind currently in existence: Bibliography of the Works of W. Somerset Maugham (1973). So far as I know, it is still available second-hand in fine condition and at reasonable prices.

Since it was published nearly forty years ago, it is considerably dated though it still contains much of great interest. The aim of the present thread is to correct obvious mistakes or omissions, to update dated references, to discuss some of Mr Stott's opinions, to provide some further cross-references, and to list the most important contributions to the Maugham scholarship since 1973.

In the end, it is hoped, Mr Stott’s book will become even more valuable to those dedicated to serious exploration of Maugham’s vast oeuvre. This is what is meant by the pompous phrase 'A Critical Examination'.

Of course my approach, much unlike Mr Stott’s, is that of the reader. It is a very different approach than that of the collector.

I am using a Revised and Extended edition, published by Kaye & Ward in 1973, 320 pp. It is probably the only one there is, but to be on the safe side I will use only Mr Stott’s codes and no page numbers.

I now propose to discuss in the next post the very important matter with Maugham's prefaces and then go through the whole book, section by section in different posts, making notes about whatever strikes me as worth-mentioning. These posts I will try to keep updated when new things come up.

Any comments whatsoever as regards books by or about Maugham, and especially corrections of my corrections, are of course appreciated.

Now the most important matter about Maugham's prefaces are those he wrote about Heinemann's The Collected Edition (TCE for short, 1934-69), especially the non-dramatic works. Mr Stott has summarised them nicely in B2. Here are couple of points which I at least find somewhat unsatisfactorily handled, or which Mr Stott could not have known at the time; if no other code is mentioned in the beginning, see B2.

- From ''Cosmopolitans. 1938. Preface 7 pp.'' you might suppose that there is a new preface written especially for the edition. There isn't. The preface is the same as the one in the first edition (A50). Mr Stott does mention it in the collation section but he omits it from the table of contents. This is not right. The preface is one of Maugham's finest, and it is essential for proper understanding of the nature of these ''very short stories''.

- ''Ah King. 1936. Preface 6 pp.'' Well, yes, there is a new preface for Ah King but it is an extended version of the original, also titled ''Ah King''. Amazingly, Mr Stott does not even mention the latter in his entry about the collection itself (A46). This is unforgivable. The piece, in addition to being a mini short story, contains an important background information; it's also a rare case when Maugham was a very bad judge of character, and admitted as much; last but not least, it is a recommended read for those who still accuse him of racism. For TCE the last sentence of the original preface was expanded into several paragraphs, all of considerable interest.

- The case of Of Human Bondage is complicated. The new ''Preface 4 pp.'' mentioned here is the one written in 1934 for Heinemann's ''Presentation Edition, reset'' (A21c). Mr Stott does mention it but omit to tell us that it is titled ''Instead of a preface'' and finishes with a fan letter from a 16-year-old admirer. However, most modern editions (Vintage, Modern Library) contain the 1936 ''Foreword'' written for Doubleday's First Illustrated Edition (noted in A21d). This is the piece that starts with the disarming ''This is a very long novel and I am ashamed to make it longer by writing a preface to it.''

- Modern Vintage paperbacks contain all those prefaces mentioned in B2 except those to On a Chinese Screen and The Moon and Sixpence. The reason for those omissions remains elusive. Of course Vintage does not reprint the short story collections; these have been out of print for ages and some old editions may not contain the TCE prefaces, or may contain the original ones under different titles. For example, the cheap 1959 Berkley paperback (from the series with the outrageous covers) has the titleless preface to First Person Singular titled ''Introduction''; the separate TCE preface is not reprinted at all, even though it had appeared in print more than 20 years earlier.

- B9, the Heron Books edition of Willie's works (1967-69). Mr Stott is right about its being ''well-produced'' but he is quite incorrect that it is of ''the complete works of this author''. More importantly, he never mentions that this edition – at least judging by pagination and The Trembling of a Leaf – does contain the prefaces written for TCE.

- The case with Penguin's 1963 four-volume edition of Collected Short Stories (B7) is baffling. Mr Stott forgets to inform us that this edition contains the same 91 stories as the three volumes of Heinemann (B17) or the two volumes of Doubleday (B20). But the prefaces, save for a few minor changes, are those of Heinemann's edition (B17). This four-volume edition is the most popular one, having been reprinted countless times through the years (Pan, Mandarin, Vintage, Folio Society, take your pick).

- In the entries for several short story collection Mr Stott mentions their original prefaces only in the collation sections, where they can easily be overlooked, but omits them in the tables of contents, where they would be easy to spot. In addition to the already mentioned case of Cosmopolitans (A50), these also include The Mixture as Before (A58) and Creatures of Circumstance (A66).

- The entry about The Trembling of a Leaf (A25) omits to epilogue ''Envoi'' in the table of contents. (Well, technically this is not a preface, but epilogues also count.)

- A37b. The ''new 7-page preface'' mentioned about the 1941 Doubleday edition of Ashenden is actually almost complete reprint of the preface from TCE (1934, B2). But there are a few new paragraphs about the changes in espionage between the two World wars as well as about Goebbels' famous announcing on the air that the Ashenden stories are ''an example of British cynicism and brutality''.

- A1f. Mr Stott is correct about the important origins of the 1947 preface to the Jubilee Edition of Liza of Lambeth, but he doesn't tell us that the new material here is unimportant, a rare case in Maugham's prefaces.

- Last but not least, here is a short list with important prefaces which Mr Stott does mention: East and West (B2, B3), The Complete Short Stories (B17: British edition, B20=B2+B19: American edition), The Collected Plays (1952, B18), The World Over (B19), The Selected Novels (B21, the prefaces for the first two volumes are rehash from TCE), The Partial View (B22), The Travel Books (B25, only partly rehash from TCE)

Section A: Books and Pamphlets by W. Somerset Maugham

We may start with the total. There are many places in the Web where you can find the preposterous statement that Maugham wrote 78 books. Since Mr Stott's bibliography has a first section with exactly 78 entries, the rumour probably originated with him. It is quite untrue and the bibliographer is indeed to blame.

To begin with, only 69 of these 78 are unique works. The rest consists of previously published short stories reprinted as pamphlets (A48, A55, A62), reprinting of a single short story in an anthology (A43), old stuff plus new screenplays not written by Maugham (A68, A71, A73), works only translated/adapted by Maugham (A75) and, most amazingly, a booklet (A76) sold in the theatre where the opera The Moon and Sixpence, based on Maugham's novel but otherwise having no connection with him, was first performed. None of these works should have been included in this section.

Of the rest 69 works 24 are plays and 4 are pamphlets. It is sensible to list them separately, perhaps, but none of them is substantial enough to be counted as a full-length book. But the rest 41 certainly are: 20 novels, 9 short story collections, 3 travel books and 9 volumes with essays/memoirs/etc. To these one may add the three volumes of The Collected Plays (1952, B18), even though they contain only 18 plays, and two very important post-Stott books that consists entirely of previously uncollected pieces by Maugham: Seventeen Lost Stories (1967) and Traveller in Romance (1984). So, for lovers of statistics, we may conclude that Maugham wrote 46 books, plus minor miscellaneous pieces scattered here and there.

So much for the quantitative analysis. Now something about the qualitative. We may start with Mr Stott at his most high-handed:

The notable fact about Mrs Craddock is that it is the only one of this author's early novels (with the possible exception of Liza) that is today at all readable.

You are forgetting yourself, Raymond. You are a bibliographer, not a critic. Needless to say, if one is seriously interested in Maugham, pretty much all of his early novels are quite readable, including some dull ones like The Explorer, The Magician or The Making of a Saint. Mr Stott, however, is quite right that Maugham's third novel is the first one where ''unexpected flashes of the later Maugham, with his worldly wisdom and uncanny, intuitive understanding of human nature'' can be glimpsed.

A5. Mrs Craddock (1902). As pointed out by Norman Moore in the notes to his stupendous collection, the original version of the novel, with omitted passages restored but also with many new corrections by Maugham, first appeared in 1928, not in 1937 for TCE. The same goes for the preface which, as mentioned by Mr Stott, was further expanded for the 1955 edition.

A37. Ashenden (1928). Oddly enough, Mr Stott gives full contents of the book, but he never makes it clear that in the volumes with Complete/Collected short stories 15 of the 16 chapters were merged into the six well-known, and longish, tales. Follow the link for more info on that.

A60 Strictly Personal Mr Stott rightly points out that the English edition contains a letter to Eddie Marsh (by way of preface) which is not to be found in the American one. But he doesn't mention the more important fact, namely that the former edition lacks the whole fifteenth chapter; apparently Heinemann were outraged by the candid portrait of (presumably) Godfrey Winn and feared libel issues. The chapter consist mostly of a devastating conversation every bit as good as a play. The letter to Eddie is not enough of compensation. So if you must get one edition of this book, get the Doubleday one.

A68 Quartet, 1948. This is one of the three volumes which consist of previously published stories and screenplays not written by Maugham (with the possible exception of ''The Verger'' from Trio, 1950). Anyway, Mr Stott and I have apparently seen different versions of the movie ''Quartet''. In my copy, part of the 3DVD box available, Maugham's introductions to the four stories, all printed in the book, are omitted on the screen. Only his conclusion and part of his general introduction (''In my twenties the critics…'') are retained. Either these parts of the screenplay were never shot and Mr Stott never actually saw the movie, or they were shot all right but were cut somewhere during the long way to the DVD release.

(In the other two movies, Trio and Encore, Maugham's introductions are retained as they are printed in the books, and as pointed out by Mr Stott.)

Section B: Collected Editions

Most problematic points in this section concern the prefaces and have already been discussed. But there are a couple of other issues worth mentioning.

Mr Stott has listed a number of volumes, mostly short story collections, which consist entirely of previously published material. Countless of these have appeared since and listing all of them is quite a task. And some of them, like the recent blunder of Everyman's library The Skeptical Romancer, are not worth mentioning.

Still, here may be mentioned some excellent selections of short stories that have appeared since, such as Far Eastern Tales and the 1990 selection by Anthony Curtis titled simply Short Stories; both are terrific introductions to Maugham at his element. Also wonderfully chosen and introduced by Mr Curtis are the two volumes of Maugham Plays, and they contain The Letter, based on the eponymous short story but omitted from The Collected Plays. As more eclectic collections, combining fiction and non-fiction, two mighty books mentioned by Mr Stott may be recommended: The Maugham Reader (1950) and Mr Maugham Himself (1954), the former with a fine introduction by Glenway Wescott.

It has already been said but it is worth repeating the confused situation with the complete/collected short stories. In Mr Stott's language, ''1871-74'' from B7 (Penguin, 1963, 4 vols.) is identical – in terms of stories! – with B17 (Heinemann, 1951, 3 vols.) and B20=B2/3+B19 (Doubleday, 1952, 2 vols.). Only the prefaces are different. The first two editions share the same short pieces (if split differently), but the American edition contains two long and rather different prefaces; especially notable is the 26-page introduction to East and West which contains a lot of fascinating material on the art of short story, including Maugham's workshop and his great colleagues in the genre, Maupassant and Chekhov. The situation with the stories and the prefaces is not quite clear from Mr Stott's presentation; some notes and cross references would have saved much of the reader's time.

B19, The World Over, 1952, the second volume of the First American edition of the complete short stories. Mr Stott got right the total of tales that came from the travel books, but he got wrong the distribution. The volume contains two stories from On a Chinese Screen, not three, and five from The Gentleman in the Parlour, not four. See Complete Short Stories for more information.

B16, The Maugham Reader, 1950. For this information I am grateful to danielx; Mr Stott doesn't seem to find it worth mentioning. Strange as it may seem, this volume contains three of the stories from the travel books under titles that, so far as can be ascertained at present, have never appeared anywhere else. Here they are, on the left is the well-known title from the complete short stories, on the right the alternative one from The Maugham Reader:

Mirage – The Opium Addict
A Marriage of Convenience – The French Governor
Princess September – September's Bird

B23, Mr Maugham Himself, 1954. Again I thank danielx for providing important information which Mr Stott grossly neglects. Moreover, in his listing of the contents he wrote this nonsense: ''The Summing Up (from A Writer's Notebook)''. In fact, both works are quite independent and, more interestingly, the former is reprinted here with a special postscript which has been found to be part of the new preface to The Partial View, first published in the same year and indeed combining both books in one volume.

B30/B31, Selected Prefaces and Introductions, 1963/64. I quite disagree with Mr Stott that this is an ''indifferent selection''. Follow the link to see the table of contents which the bibliographer has omitted.

Section C: Books and Pamphlets Edited, or with Contributions by W. Somerset Maugham

This section consists of 63 diverse pieces of miscellaneous writing. For the most part, though by no means always, Mr Stott has indicated sources and supplied cross-references well. Below I am concerned exclusively with previously uncollected material; I have skipped all instances when the piece by Maugham in question is to be found in any of his books.

Many of the pieces listed in this section are reprinted in A Traveller in Romance (1984) and have thus become much more easily accessible than they were in Mr Stott's time. These include: C4, 7, 9-13, 17-19, 23, 25, 27, 28, 34, 35, 47, 56-58, 60, 62, 63.

The section also includes the prefaces to the abridged editions of Maugham's ''ten greatest novels'' published by Winston in 1948-49 (C36-45). The introductions to all were collected in Great Novelists and Their Novels (1949) and later, in expanded form, Ten Novels and Their Authors (1954).

Some of Maugham's compelling introductions to his anthologies – see C15, C26, C51-2 – are reprinted, with minor omissions, in Selected Prefaces and Introductions (B30/31).

C31. Stupendous typo on word level. Clearly a title like ''Introduction to Modern English and Modern Literature'' doesn't make much sense. The second ''Modern'' must be ''American''.

Now follows a short annotated bibliography compiled from various sources. It attempts to list all contributions by Maugham to books of others that are currently uncollected anywhere else, or were so in Mr Stott's time. It also includes his pamphlets that contain rare material or any other pieces that are difficult to trace/identify. Some of the research comes from Mr Stott, some from Mr Moore, some from myself, some from the Web, some from the subconscious.

- My Favorite Story, International Magazine Co., 1928. Reprints ''Red'' from The Trembling of a Leaf (1921). Contains also a short introduction by Maugham why he chose this story.

- How Writers Write: Essays by Contemporary Authors. Edited by N. S. Tillett, Crowell, 1937. Contains ''How I Write Short Stories by Maugham, pp. 69-82. Most probably the preface to East and West which also appeared in Saturday Review of Literature on 28 July 1934 (see D101).

- The Harvest. Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, MCMXXXVII. Jubilee edition of Tauchnitz to celebrate 100 years of publishing, 1837-1937. Contains a letter by Maugham.

- Wisdom of Life: An Anthology of Noble Thoughts. London: Watts, 1938. Apparently contains some noble, but still unidentified, thoughts by Maugham.

- A Number of People by Sir Edward Marsh. New York: Harper Bros., 1939. Contains preface by Maugham, not in the English edition. It might be identical with the piece dedicated to Eddie Marsh and published the same year in Publishers' Weekly under the title ''Proof-Reading as an Avocation''. See D117.

- An Appeal for the Hospitals. Bundles for Britain, WWII exhibition catalogue, 1941. Contains one page appeal by Maugham for charitable contributions to British hospitals damaged in the war.

- The English Spirit. Edited and with an Introduction by Anthony Weymouth. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1942; New York: Norton, 1944. Contains ''Twenty Days in a Ship'' by Maugham, pp. 40-45, a piece dealing with incidents described in Strictly Personal in similar, but by no means identical, language.

- The Magician by Frank Bruno. Viking Press, 1946. Introduction by Maugham.

- Paul Gauguin by Raymond Cogniat. Wildenstein & Co., April 1946. Art catalogue with Introduction by Maugham.

- Writing for Love or Money by Norman Cousins, Ed. New York: Longmans, Green, 1949. Contains ''How I Write Short Stories'' by Maugham. Most probably these are excerpts from the preface to East and West (1934).

- Essays by Divers Hands. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of United Kingdom, vol. 25. London: Oxford University Press, MCML. Contains ''The Short Story'' by Maugham. This is, perhaps and yet again, the introduction to East and West, or at least parts of it. Cf D102.

- The Writer's Point of View. Pamphlet, Cambridge University Press, 1951. Ninth Annual Lecture of National Book League given by Maugham in Kingsway Hall on 24.10.1951. Much of the material was taken from ''Novelist or Bond Salesman'' (D54), reprinted in A Traveller in Romance (1984).

- Robert Ross: Friend of Friends by Margery Ross. London: J. Cape, 1952. Letters of Maugham to Robert Ross, pp. 157, 203.

- Speech by W. Somerset Maugham. Given on opening the exhibition of Authors as Artists at the Army & Navy Stores, 15 October 1956. London, Army & Navy Stores Ltd., 1956. A talk on ''authors who have to a greater or lesser extent occupied themselves with graphic arts'' with reflections on Max Beerbohm, Gordon Craig, Lawrence Whistler, D. H. Lawrence and Noel Coward (2 pp).

- The Cassell Miscellany. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1958.
Contains the original version of ''The Mother'', reprinted from Story Teller, April 1909. The later, slightly revised, version appears in Creatures of Circumstance (1947).

- Purely for My Pleasure. Heinemann, 1962. Art album of Maugham's picture collection with short commentaries by him how he happened to acquire possession of these canvases. Maugham's very last book.

Section D: Contributions to Periodicals by W. Somerset Maugham

This section contains 186 entries, including nearly all of Maugham's short stories (often under different titles) and quite a few of his non-fiction pieces; even most of his novels were first serialized. Seldom did he write anything that was first published in book form.

First it is useful to identify the 21 short stories that have made it into book form posthumously.

Seventeen Lost Stories (1969, B36): D1-3, 5, 7-8, 10-12, 14-16. Mr Stott notes all cross-references except D1, 12, 14-16. The rest five stories, all of them from Orientations (1899), appear never to have appeared in magazines.

Four short stories can be found in A Traveller in Romance (1984): D13, D17, D99. Mr Stott misses ''The Spanish Priest'', Illustrated London News, 1906.

Various other pieces, including some of Maugham's earliest dramatic attempts, are also to be found in the same book. These include: D4, 9, 20, 24, 27, 54, 117, 124, 134, 136, 138-40, 142, 145-49, 151, 156, 171, 180, 183.

Pieces in A Traveller in Romance (1984) that are not in Stott, and which have not been mentioned above:
- The Ionian Sea by George Gissing. Review in Sunday Sun, 1901.
- ''How Novelists Draw Their Characters'', Bookman, 1922.
- ''On the Approach of Middle Age'', Vanity Fair, 1923. Cf C62.
- Growing-Up - Twenty-Five by Beverly Nichols. Review in Sunday Times, 1926.
- ''The Noblest Act'', This Week, 1942.
- ''Books of the Year'', Sunday Times, 1955.
- ''On His Ninetieth Birthday - W. Somerset Maugham talking to Ewan MacNaughton'', Sunday Express, 1964. Not written by Maugham himself. A patch work with quotations from his books and his thoughts guided by Ewan MacNaughton who found the almost 90 years old Maugham feeble and with a good many blanks in his memory. The piece was approved by Maugham before publication. See Stott G144.

Pieces in Stott that are not known to have been collected anywhere and which do not seem to consist of such material:
- D69. ''Advice to a Young Author'', New York Times, 2 March 1927.
- D125. ''Give Me a Murder'', Sat. Eve. Post, 28 December 1940.
- D126. ''What Tomorrow Holds'', Redbook, January 1941.
- D127. ''They are Strange People'', Redbook, February 1941.
- D150. ''In Defence of Who-done-its'', Scholastic, 25 May 1945.
- D154. ''Function of the Writer'', Writer, 25 May 1946.
- D159. ''What Should a Novel Do?'', Scholastic, 3 March 1947.
- D178. ''The Bidding Started Slowly'', The Connoisseur, June 1952.
- D179. A Letter to the Editor of John O'London's Weekly, 8 October 1952.

Mistakes and anomalies in Stott, plus some speculations:
- D45. ''The Woman Who Wouldn't Take a Hint'' is a variant title of what appears in The Complete Short Stories as ''Mabel''. Thanks to danielx for confirming this inference.
- D19. ''Pygmalion at Home and Abroad''. Not a piece by Maugham at all. A review comparing Maugham's The Land of Promise with Shaw's Pygmalion.
- D37. Wrong cross-reference. ''A50'' should be ''A42''.
- D82. ''Through the Jungle'' might possibly be excerpt from The Gentleman from the Parlour. Of course, and alas, there are no photos in the book.
- D87. ''Maltreat the Dead in Fiction'', Literary Digest, November 8, 1930. Not a piece by Maugham but a critique of his ''portrayal'' of Hardy in Cakes and Ale (Moore; he lists the piece as ''Mistreating the Dead in Fiction'').
- D91. ''Maugham Discusses Drama'', an interview listed twice. Cf. G21.
- D92. The material about Arnold Bennett also appears in the essay ''Some Novelists I Have Known'' from The Vagrant Mood (1952, A74).
- D110. Pretty blatant error that ''The Lion's Skin'' has never been reprinted in book form. It has, of course, in The Mixture as Before (A58) and in the later complete/collected editions.
- D120. ''Britain Views the French Navy'', July 1940. The title suggests excerpt from France at War (1940). Indeed, it is, but Mr Stott got the title wrong. It is "A Briton Views the French Navy", courtesy of My W. Somerset Maugham Collection.
- D133. ''Mr. Tomkin's (sic) Sitter''. An interview with Maugham: Geoffrey T. Hellman and Harold Ross, The Talk of the Town, ''Mr. Tompkin's Sitter'', The New Yorker, June 7, 1941, p. 9.
- D147. Savenkoff is not, of course, the Duke Sergius but his assassin.
- D153. Wrong cross-reference. A68 should be A66.
- D172. ''Ten Best Sellers'', September 1948. Probably excerpts from Great Novelists and Their Novels, perhaps from the introductory chapter.

Omissions from Stott, not collected anywhere:
- ''W. Somerset Maugham discusses the Cinema'', Film Weekly, November 19, 1938.
- ''Strasbourg: City of Death''. People, Topics, Opinions, April 1940. Excerpt from France at War (1940).
- ''I'm Glad To Be Old'', English Digest, International Edition, April 1951.
- ''The Wisdom of W. S. Maugham'', Playboy Magazine, January 1966. Spurious, as has been argued by John Whitehead in the introduction to A Traveller in Romance (1984).

Section F: Check-list of Works Concerning W. Somerset Maugham
Section G: Check-list of Periodicals Concerning W. Somerset Maugham

Section E is skipped due to my lack of belief in its importance.

Speaking of my prejudices, I might mention that Sections F and G will be dealt with in a more perfunctory manner. The reason is that I would rather read a third-rate piece by Maugham, full of repetitions, than a first-rate writing about him – and there is woefully little of the latter.

One point where I agree with Mr Stott is his rather contemptuous dismissal of the work of Klaus Jonas. Nevertheless, the addition of a few cross references might be useful.

The World of Somerset Maugham (F103) contains the following items from Stott: G61, F67a, F96 (slightly expanded).

The Maugham Enigma (F87) contains the following from Stott: F2=F43=G9, F7, F65, F76, G3, G17(in English), G23, G30, G42, G47, G50, G61, G66, G69, G72.

Various other notes:

- F37. Mr Stott is correct about the places where MacCarthy's ''The English Maupassant'' has been reprinted, but he has missed the cross-references: B4 and F85.

- F67a=G69. ''Maugham and Posterity'' by Glenway Wescott, a ''fine critical study'', is also reprinted in B16 and F103. There are several slight differences, especially re-arranged paragraphs, but the piece is substantially the same in both books.

- F79. Somerset Maugham by John Brophy. In my attempt for a review I have tried to explain why I don't think this is ''an excellent study of the novelist''.

- F93. Theatrical Companion to Maugham may be recommended to all admirers of Maugham's plays.

- F119. Memoirs of a Malayan Official by Victor Purcell. Mr Stott's claim that the book ''throws quite a lot of light on the scandals which undoubtedly gave Maugham the idea for many of his plots'' is perfect nonsense. There are very few references to Maugham and they mostly show that Mr Purcell had no idea what the writer was trying to do. One is tempted to exclaim: "It's fiction, stupid!"

- F120. The Two Worlds of Somerset Maugham by Wilmon Menard. Mr Stott might have recommended this excellent study of Maugham the man and the writer. This book does contain a lot of interesting material about some of Maugham's stories, most notably ''The Pool''.

- (F134a). This is where Remembering Mr Maugham by Garson Kanin should have been. For some mysterious reason Mr Stott doesn't mention this important book.

- F160. Sunshine and Shadow by Cecil Roberts. This is neither a ''fascinating autobiography'', nor does it contain ''much of interest on Maugham''. The autobiography is of the dullest possible kind, listing tons of events with minimum reflection in between, and the only really interesting moment on Maugham is when Mr Roberts met the grief-stricken author shortly after Haxton's death; you can find the few lines of it in most of Maugham's biographies.

Quite a few books on Maugham have appeared since 1973. Here is a highly selective list. For more information, together with some annotations, one is directed to Troy James Bassett's work:

http://users.ipfw.edu/bassettt/docs/bassettmaugham.pdf

Four full-scale biographies of Maugham:
- Maugham by Ted Morgan, 1980.
- Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham by Robert Calder, 1989.
- Somerset Maugham: A Life by Jeffrey Meyers, 2004.
- The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings, 2009.

These at least pretend to be scholarly. Here are several books about Maugham that make no such claims:
- Conversations with Willie by Robin Maugham, 1978.
- Somerset Maugham and the Maugham Dynasty by Bryan Connon, 1993.

There are two fine illustrated biographies, the one by Anthony Curtis is also well-written:
- Somerset Maugham by Anthony Curtis, 1977.
- Somerset Maugham and His World by Frederick Raphael, 1977.

All of the above are mostly biographical. The rest – except for Samuel Rogal's A William Somerset Maugham Encyclopedia (1997) and A companion to the characters in the fiction and drama of W. Somerset Maugham (1996) – are all critical or bibliographical studies:
- The Pattern of Maugham by Anthony Curtis, 1974.
- Somerset Maugham (Writers and their work 279) by Anthony Curtis, 1982.
- W. Somerset Maugham: The Critical Heritage, eds. Curtis and Whitehead, 1987. Contains G9, 11, 42, 60, 100, 142, 153, and a lot not mentioned by Stott.
- Maugham: A Reappraisal by John Whitehead, 1987.
- W. Somerset Maugham by Archie Loss, 1987.
- W. Somerset Maugham: A Study of the Short Fiction by Stanley Archer, 1993.
- A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Loren and Frances Rothschild William Somerset Maugham Collection, 2001.
- W. Somerset Maugham: The Man and His Work / Leben und Werk by Klaus Jonas, 2009.

So much for now.

My own attempt to do from a reader's point of view what Mr Stott did in his sections A-D from a collector's can be found here.

an edition of Of Human Bondage not in Stott -- notable, due to the resurrection of the suppressed cover of years earlier (with the "club" on the wrong foot)

http://historical.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=6020&lotNo=37116

In addition to the above, two major types of information were not included by Raymond Toole-Stott. One is detailed bibliographical information on the published stories, specifically pagination. The omission is perplexiing, since pagination is a standard bibliographic detail. Fortunately, this information is indicated in William Somerset Maugham: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Loren and Frances Rothschild Collection.

Second, Stott does not include descriptions of the dustjackets of the published books. Photos of some of these are included in the above Rothschild and Whiteman (2001) work, and some others can be found online. Someone should publish a catalog of them :-)