This tale has a strange history. Maugham had submitted it to Cosmopolitan years earlier, but its editor Ray Long rejected it because he feared readers would be offended by the subject matter (incest between British adult brother and sister in Malaya; the ending is vaguely reminiscent of Conrad's "Oh the horror!" in "Heart of Darkness"). In 1932, Long decided to publish an anthology of the twenty best stories he had published in Cosmopolitan, and decided (with Maugham's acquiescence) to include "The Book-Bag." Three months after Long's anthology, Orioli's Florence edition came out (Orioli being the publisher who also took on some of D. H. Lawrence's writings others would not touch). (Toole Stott points out that ultimately, Ray Long indirectly lost his life due to Maugham: after reading The Moon and Sixpence Long decided that he too would become an artist in the South Pacific, left his career (in his fifties) to do just that, and subsequently committed suicide there when he realized he had no talent.) This is a near-fine copy, slightly faded along the top edge; the dust jacket is good-to-very good, with some edge-wear (not affecting print) and with the usual tanning of the spine. Toole Stott A43b.

In addition to his signature on the frontispiece, Maugham inscribed this copy on the front endpaper "For Karl Pfeiffer | W. Somerset Maugham". Karl Pfeiffer of South Carolina (later an instructor at UNC) first met Maugham in 1923, when at a Washington hotel he was "recruited" as a fourth hand in a game of bridge. In the late 1930s Pfeiffer got back in touch with Maugham, and they communicated frequently; during World War II (at which time Maugham lived in the U.S.), they also met with some frequency. During the decade after the war, their relationship went steadily downhill, with Pfeiffer wanting to write a biography of Maugham and Maugham insisting that he not do so until after Maugham had died. Pfeiffer did so anyway (SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A Candid Portrait, in 1959), and in the book he insulted Maugham's writing -- essentially terminating their long association.