The Moon And Sixpence
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What drives a man to abandon everything — comfort, family, respectability — in pursuit of an obsession he cannot name? The Moon and Sixpence chronicles the fictional life of Charles Strickland, a stolid London stockbroker who shocks his social circle by abruptly deserting his wife and children to become a painter in Paris, ultimately finding his destiny in the raw, unforgiving beauty of Tahiti. Loosely inspired by the life of Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, W. Somerset Maugham constructs a brilliant and unsettling portrait of artistic genius stripped of all romance, narrated by a wry, observant writer who is simultaneously repelled and fascinated by his subject. Maugham's prose is precise, ironic, and laced with a cool detachment that paradoxically draws the reader deeper into Strickland's turbulent inner world. The novel argues boldly that true art is born not from privilege or pleasure, but from a consuming, almost savage compulsion that recognises no moral boundary. A foundational work of early 20th-century British fiction, it poses questions about the cost of genius and the nature of beauty that remain as urgent and unanswered today as when it was first published in 1919 — leaving the reader to wonder whether Strickland's sacrifice was an act of courage, madness, or something altogether more transcendent.
Author: Somerset Maugham
Format: Paperback
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What drives a man to abandon everything — comfort, family, respectability — in pursuit of an obsession he cannot name? The Moon and Sixpence chronicles the fictional life of Charles Strickland, a stolid London stockbroker who shocks his social circle by abruptly deserting his wife and children to become a painter in Paris, ultimately finding his destiny in the raw, unforgiving beauty of Tahiti. Loosely inspired by the life of Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, W. Somerset Maugham constructs a brilliant and unsettling portrait of artistic genius stripped of all romance, narrated by a wry, observant writer who is simultaneously repelled and fascinated by his subject. Maugham's prose is precise, ironic, and laced with a cool detachment that paradoxically draws the reader deeper into Strickland's turbulent inner world. The novel argues boldly that true art is born not from privilege or pleasure, but from a consuming, almost savage compulsion that recognises no moral boundary. A foundational work of early 20th-century British fiction, it poses questions about the cost of genius and the nature of beauty that remain as urgent and unanswered today as when it was first published in 1919 — leaving the reader to wonder whether Strickland's sacrifice was an act of courage, madness, or something altogether more transcendent.