TITLE: Liza of Lambeth
AUTHOR: W. Somerset Maugham
PUBLISHER: William Heinemann
PLACE: London
YEAR: 1947
EDITION: JUBILEE
BINDING: Original gilt bordered quarter vellum over decorative red parchment boards along with dust jacket matching the boards. Top edge gilt; other edges uncut. Black leather gilt titled label on spine. The book was designed by Stanley Morison, and printed at The Windmill Press, Kingswood Surrey.
NO.OF PAGES: pp xv [1], 136 [2]
SIZE:
Height: 22.5 cm
Width: 15.5 cm
Depth: 2.3 cm

JUBILEE EDITION, LIMITED TO 1,000 NUMBERED COPIES. THIS IS AN OUT OF SERIES COPY, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. THE BOOK COMES ALONG WITH A TYPED LETTER BY THE AUTHOR

The book, which was the author's first novel, was originally published in 1897.

Liza of Lambeth, is a heart gripping novel depicting the life and death of an 18-year-old factory worker who lives with her aging mother in the working class district of Lambeth in London. It is a taleof working-class adultery and its consequences. It drew its details from Maugham's experiences as a medical student doing midwifery work in Lambeth, a South London slum. Maugham wrote near the opening of the novel: "... it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue."

William Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) was a Britishplaywright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.

After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a medical doctor (physician). The first run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gaveup 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, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he travelled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.