Raymond Mander

[Letter by W. Somerset Maugham to the authors, reprinted on p. iv of the first edition (London: Rockliff, 1955) of the Companion:]

Villa Mauresque / St. Jean Cap Ferrat, A. M. / 15th September, 1955.

Dear Mander and Mitchenson,

I received yesterday your proofs of the Theatrical Companion to Maugham. I am amazed at the amount of work you have obviously put into it. Your industry is as staggering as your accuracy is impressive. I can only thank you for all the pains you have taken.

Yours sincerely,
(signed) W. S. Maugham… (mer)

[From the Introduction by W. Somerset Maugham to the first edition, Heinemann, 1955; reprinted in A Traveller in Romance, ed. John Whitehead, Clarkson N. Potter, 1984, p. 63:]

This handsome volume, to which these words I have written are meant to serve as an introduction, owes its origin to the enthusiasm and formidable industry of two young men, Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson. They have put an immense amount of work into it. They have pored over dusty volumes, searched collections, examined innumerable faded playbills, read old criticisms of plays and looked into the records of sales at auction rooms. They have spared no pains to make their information accurate. They have followed clues with all the pertinacity of a detective of fiction; and so have been able to identify an obscure actor in a forgotten play, and in some cases have even been able to quote the very words he was saying at the moment the artist chose to picture the scene. They have corrected mistakes in attribution; they have been able to decide which was the original painting and which the replica. They are true lovers of the theatre, and their labour has been a labour of love. I like to think that it will not have been entirely wasted, for what they have learnt is surely not without interest, since these pictures, which have been so admirably photographed, will eventually find their permanent place in the National Theatre and there, I trust, give pleasure to generation after generation of playgoers.… (mer)