The Moon and Sixpence.

MAUGHAM, W. Somerset.

$850.00

Item Number: 148387

New York: The Heritage Press, 1941.

Finely bound Heritage Press illustrated edition of this classic novel. Octavo, bound in full morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe with gilt titles to the spine in six compartments within raised bands, all edges gilt, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, frontispiece self-portrait of Paul Gauguin, illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele and Paul Gauguin. In fine condition.

American novelist and playwright William Somerset Maugham was among the most popular writers of his era and, by the time of his death in 1965, was one of the most commercially successful writers of the twentieth century. The Moon and Sixpence (1919), one of his most enduring novels, fictionalizes the life of French artist Paul Gauguin through the character of Charles Strickland, an ordinary London stockbroker who abandons his bourgeois life to pursue a radical artistic vision. The novel explores themes of obsession, creativity, and the cost of artistic genius, often highlighting the tension between societal expectations and individual purpose.