Cakes and Ale or The Skeleton in the Cupboard

London: Heinemann, 1930. First edition, variant state of p. 147 with the 't' not mssing (no precedence established -- "both states issued simultaneously", according to Stott). [4], 270 pp. 1 vols. 12mo. Original publisher's blue cloth. Very good in somewhat worn and soiled dust jacket with small chip from head, a few small tears. First edition, variant state of p. 147 with the 't' not mssing (no precedence established -- "both states issued simultaneously", according to Stott). [4], 270 pp. 1 vols. 12mo. 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. The first-person narrator is identified on the dust jacket flap as Ashenden but only on page 81 of the text does he identify himself (the "Master Willie" of the sentence following suggests an autobiographical touch). Stott A40a; Clute, The Book Blinders 32