Books

Full Description: MAUGHAM, W. Somerset. The Moon and Sixpence. New York: George H. Doran Compant, [1919]. First American edition. Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches; 190 x 130 mm). [1]-314, [4, blank] pp. Publisher's full green cloth. Front board and spine lettered in black. Some minor rubbing to cloth along edges. Brentano's small bookseller sticker on back endpaper. Endpapers lightly toned. In printed dust jacket. Jacket is rubbed and soiled. Some chipping along top and bottom of spine and along edges. A few words affected by the chipping to spine and panels. Still a very good copy. Together with: Typed Letter Signed. On letter head from Villa Mauresque, St. Jean-Cap Ferrat A.M. and signed in black ink by Maugham. Typed and signed on front only. (8 3/16 x 5 1/4 inches; 208 x 135 mm). Letter reads: "4th February, 1964./Dear Dr. Weber,/ Thank you for your charming/letter and good wishes on my ninety-/first birthday. it was extremely/ kind of you to write to me; I was/ touched and much pleased./ Yours sincerely,/W.J. Maugham" "In this book, the first since his 'Of Human Bondage,' Mr. Maugham has done an audacious story of the secret desires that afflict and glorify humanity. No one, says an English critic, can 'doubt his daring as a dispassionate realist.' The conception of Charles Strickland is fantastic, but it is done with such power of analysis that it overwhelms with its reality. The stockbroker who after twenty years of married life walks off from his family for a career in painting and finally drifts to the South Seas, where he does rare and beautiful work while living as a savage, is a figure of extraordinary fascination and eccentric appeal." (From the jacket). Toole Stott A22c. HBS 69149. $1,850.

'The Moon and Sixpence' is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, based loosely on the life of the artist Paul Gauguin. It tells the story of unremarkable, Charles Strickland, who suddenly gives up his job, family and familiar surroundings to concentrate on painting, giving up everything in the search for authenticity.