The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham (most popular novels .txt) 📕
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The Moon and Sixpence tells the story of English stockbroker Charles Strickland, who abandons his wife and child to travel to Paris to become a painter. First published in 1919 in the United Kingdom by Heinemann, the story is inspired by the life of the French artist Paul Gauguin. It’s told in episodic form from a first-person perspective. The narrator, who came to know Strickland through his wife’s literary parties, begins the story as Strickland leaves for Paris. Strickland’s new life becomes a stark contrast to his life in London. While he was once a well-off banker living a comfortable life, he must now sleep in cheap hotels while suffering both illness and hunger.
Maugham spent a year in Paris in 1904, which is when he first heard the story of Gauguin, the banker who left his family and profession to pursue his passion for art. He heard the story from others who had known and worked with Gauguin. Ten years later Maugham travelled to Tahiti where he met others who had known Gauguin during the artist’s time there. Inspired by the stories he heard, Maugham wrote The Moon and Sixpence. Although based on the life of Paul Gauguin, the story is a work of fiction.
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- Author: W. Somerset Maugham
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“He’s by way of being a pukka soldier, you know,” said Mrs. Ronaldson gaily. “That’s why he’s only a Major.”
I remembered my anticipation long ago that she would marry a soldier. It was inevitable. She had all the graces of the soldier’s wife. She was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her intimate conviction that she was not quite as others were. Robert was breezy.
“It’s a bit of luck that I should be in London when you turned up,” he said. “I’ve only got three days’ leave.”
“He’s dying to get back,” said his mother.
“Well, I don’t mind confessing it, I have a rattling good time at the front. I’ve made a lot of good pals. It’s a first-rate life. Of course war’s terrible, and all that sort of thing; but it does bring out the best qualities in a man, there’s no denying that.”
Then I told them what I had learned about Charles Strickland in Tahiti. I thought it unnecessary to say anything of Ata and her boy, but for the rest I was as accurate as I could be. When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For a minute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette.
“The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,” he said, somewhat impressively.
Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Ronaldson looked down with a slightly pious expression which indicated, I felt sure, that they thought the quotation was from Holy Writ. Indeed, I was unconvinced that Robert Strickland did not share their illusion. I do not know why I suddenly thought of Strickland’s son by Ata. They had told me he was a merry, lighthearted youth. I saw him, with my mind’s eye, on the schooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but a pair of dungarees; and at night, when the boat sailed along easily before a light breeze, and the sailors were gathered on the upper deck, while the captain and the supercargo lolled in deck-chairs, smoking their pipes, I saw him dance with another lad, dance wildly, to the wheezy music of the concertina. Above was the blue sky, and the stars, and all about the desert of the Pacific Ocean.
A quotation from the Bible came to my lips, but I held my tongue, for I know that clergymen think it a little blasphemous when the laity poach upon their preserves. My Uncle Henry, for twenty-seven years Vicar of Whitstable, was on these occasions in the habit of saying that the devil could always quote scripture to his purpose. He remembered the days when you could get thirteen Royal Natives for a shilling.
EndnotesA Modern Artist: Notes on the Work of Charles Strickland, by Edward Leggatt, A.R.H.A. Martin Secker, 1917. ↩
Karl Strickland: Sein Leben und seine Kunst, by Hugo Weitbrecht-Rotholz, Ph. D. Schwingel und Hanisch. Leipzig, 1914. ↩
Strickland: The Man and His Work, by his son, Robert Strickland. Wm. Heinemann, 1913. ↩
This was described in Christie’s catalogue as follows: “A nude woman, a native of the Society Islands, is lying on the ground beside a brook. Behind is a tropical Landscape with palm trees, bananas, etc. 60 in. × 48 in.” ↩
This picture, formerly in the possession of a wealthy manufacturer at Lille, who fled from that city on the approach of the Germans, is now in the National Gallery at Stockholm. The Swede is adept at the gentle pastime of fishing in troubled waters. ↩
ColophonThe Moon and Sixpence
was published in 1919 by
W. Somerset Maugham.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Aleksander Helgaker,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2007 by
Charles Keller, John Hamm, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Self-Portrait,
a painting completed between 1865–1866 by
Frédéric Bazille.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
June 11, 2019, 10:21 p.m.
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