My Maugham Collection Catalogue

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This is a catalogue of my private collection. I am building it for two reasons:

  1. I have completed the collection of Maugham's major works, which, in itself, is substantial, with over a hundred items. Some organization has become necessary.
  2. At times I find it hard to identify a volume correctly with the means available, and thus this catalogue aims at making this process easier for anyone who is interested in Maugham's bibliography.

I have given a record number for each item, formulated by a hierarchical classification that is intended to be easily memorable and comprehensible:

  • They all start with MMC: My Maugham Collection
  • Followed by genre, e.g.: N for novel
  • Followed by initials of the work, e.g.: LL for Liza of Lambeth
  • Followed by year the publication, e.g.: 1897
  • Followed by initials of publisher, e.g.: TFU for T. Fisher Unwin

Thus, the record number of the first edition of Liza of Lambeth would be: MMC_N_LL1897TFU.

I have opted for the genre separation of Novels (N), Short Stories (S), Plays (P), and Non-Fiction (NF) because they are conventional and uncontroversial (at least in this case), instead of Fiction and Non-Fiction, although it would make a nicer dichotomy and adhere more to standard, probably. My scheme makes it easier to categorize Short Stories and Plays, eliminating the necessity to go through another hierarchical order from Fiction.

As for format, my collection will be organized by Print Books, Magazines, Multimedia, and Ephemera.

I have chosen ease of access over uniformity. For books that I have more than one copy, there will be a landing page for the work, but it will be absent for books that I have only one copy, which is most of the cases.

For the fields of the record, I am not following any specific schema. Instead, I am choosing those that help with identification of editions (or manifestations, if you like). Although I am still building my collection, it is going to have a finite number of items that won't be too big, and so there won't be a search system built in and I will follow the principle of ease of use instead of any standard that may pose difficulties to those who are unfamiliar with classification systems. If there are other fields you are interested in, or other additional information about a particular book, just leave a comment.

Acknowledgement

As always, Stott is my authority. I will refer to his record numbers (when available), as for other catalogues, I have consulted Rothschild's (A Bibliographic Catalogue of the Loren & Frances Rothschild William Somerset Maugham Collection. Los Angeles: Heritage Bookshop, 2001) and Moore's when necessary, but I won't give their record numbers (available in Rothschild's). If there is something of note, I will put that in Notes.

I am always puzzled by Stott's colour description. Now in a different age, I think I can be more specific, not only with the actual picture of the cover or dust jacket, but with colour codes. I consult HTML Color Codes and chir.ag.

I consult Worldcat for the subject headings used.

Final Note

I put the field Cost because I don't think it should be a mystery to know how much a book costs. And it does provide interesting data when you put everything in perspective; besides, it's nice to have a record of how much one spends in a collection. It is for this sole purpose that I include it. I have no intention at all to sell any of my collection.

I would be very happy to know if you find all this useful or if you need further information. Enjoy the site!

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