Moon And Sixpence The [Paperback] Maugham W. Somerset

This title is exclusively available from Vintage ClassicsWhen his previous novel, Of Human Bondage, was reviewed in The Times, the reviewer said of the main character, Philip Carey: 'Like so many young men he was so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.' Maugham liked the phrase, stole it, and transferred it to the title of this book.

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook.

In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satiric caricature of Edwardian conventions and a vivid portrayal of the mentality of a genius.I picked it up and couldn't put it down.MagnificentFrom an era that produced George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and John Galsworthy, Maugham is the great survivorIf anyone deserves resuscitation, he does... As a teenager, I read and reread my sister's long shelf of Maughams. What I enjoyed was their atmosphere: the brooding, sensual, sinister mood of exotic locations, where his characters seemed always on the verge of mania and where no-one behaved nearly so well as they were expected to