The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

British novelist and playwright, known as the "master of storytelling".

Born in Paris, his parents died before he was ten years old. He was taken back to England to be raised by his uncle. Because of his short stature and stuttering, he was always bullied by his peers and had a withdrawn and sensitive personality.

At the age of 18, he studied medicine in London, but later gave up medicine to pursue literature. At the age of 23, he published his first novel, Lisa of Lambeth, and embarked on the path of literary creation. His life experience is unique. He has been a midwife, a spy, an actor, and an ambulance driver; he has been a husband and a lover, and has rejected a woman's proposal, and his proposal was also rejected by another woman; he claims that "three quarters of me like women, and only one quarter of me like men."

In the literary world, Maugham is an elegant, sophisticated and indifferent observer of human nature. Almost everyone can see themselves in his stories, which makes Maugham a popular writer in the 20th century.

He lived in a fairy-tale villa for the rest of his life, and in his later years he won almost all the honors in the entire European literary world. He died in France at the age of 91.

Classic representative works: "The Moon and Sixpence" and "Of Human Bondage".