The Moon and Sixpence

Charles Strickland is a dull, respectable London stockbroker with a wife and two children, until one day, at about forty, he abandons them without a word and goes to Paris. The narrator, a young writer sent to bring him back, expects to find a love affair, but Strickland has left everything simply to paint. Poor, rude, ruthless and indifferent to everyone, including those who help him, he follows his vision from Paris to Marseille and finally to Tahiti.

W. Somerset Maugham published the novel in 1919, loosely inspired by the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. It asks whether genius excuses cruelty, and the narrator's sharp, ironic voice keeps the question open. The title is said to come from a review of Maugham's Of Human Bondage, which described its hero as so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.