Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1941. Later printing, possibly book club. Hardcover. 304 pages. DJ is worn, torn, chipped, soiled, and is price clipped. Endpapers discolored. Some page discoloration. Includes Preface, as well as probably the most expert stories of espionage ever written, based on Mr. Maugham's own experiences as a British agent during the First World War. This fascinating book, first published in 1928, is now officially required reading for persons entering the British Secret Service, and is accepted as literal fact by Dr. Goebbels. It contains probably the most expert stories of espionage ever written. They are based, of course, on Mr. Maugham's own experiences as a British agent during the First World War, but they were written, the author emphasizes in a preface especially written for this edition, purely as entertainment. They make wonderfully exciting reading, freshly significant in these times. William Somerset Maugham CH (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. Orphaned, he was raised by a paternal uncle. He did not want to become a lawyer like other men in his family, so he trained and qualified as a physician. His first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897) sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service. He worked for the service in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire. More