The Moon and Sixpence cover art

The Moon and Sixpence

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 31 July, 2025 23:59 BST.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Moon and Sixpence

By: W. Somerset Maugham
Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July, 2025 23:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £10.99

Buy Now for £10.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 This is the story of an artist who was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of art. In much of its general outline, this famous novel follows the life of Paul Gauguin, famous French post-impressionist painter, but it is not a novelized biography of Gauguin. Rather it is a sharply-delineated, carefully wrought "private life", written by one of the most vivid and penetrating contemporary literary masters.

Charles Strickland, the central character, is a stock broker in London. One day, at the age of 40, he leaves his business, his wife, and their children and goes to Paris. He has neither money nor prospects. He knows almost nothing of art. But he is seized with a passion to paint, and for the rest of his life nothing else matters to him. He gives up everything to which he has been accustomed for extreme poverty, social ostracism, and the freedom to paint. When he finally dies of leprosy in Tahiti, where he had gone native, the few paintings that turn up for sale bring only six to 10 francs apiece. But he has achieved his desire to create beauty and, with the years, the world fully recognizes his blazing genius.

(P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Roderick Hudson cover art
Vipers' Tangle cover art
The Glimpses of the Moon cover art
Cakes and Ale cover art
Fellowship Point cover art
The Masterpiece cover art
Hyperion cover art
North and South cover art
The Idiot [Blackstone] cover art
Ann Veronica cover art
Anna Karenina cover art
The Good Soldier cover art
Tipperary cover art
The Magnolia Palace cover art
Father Goriot cover art
The House of Mirth cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
One of Somerset Maugham’s best. A surprising and thought provoking take. He is a master of creating characters that reveal themselves slowly through the narrative. You start by hating Charles Strickland but by the end you are firmly in his side.

Extraordinary story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great book, highly recommended for detail, description, characters. Started off a bit slowly but soon got into it. May be a bit old fashioned for some and the treatment of women generally is tough. However, this is an interesting story of the time which some readers feel is based on Paul Gauguin. Highly recommended.

Is it Gauguin

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like Somerset Maugham's books, the way they go into a personality and what drives them.

very good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There’s a glitch in chapter 7 with about 3 hours 31 seconds to go it jumps to another part in the story.

The story itself is ok but meanders towards the end and includes some racist language and attitudes that were prevalent at the time of writing.

It is also well read even though you can hear the reader moving around and the shuffling of paper/script.

Too long

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A fascinating story of an artist ‘s absolute compulsion to perform their art to the exclusion of all else -and our difficulty in understanding that singular but necessary frame of mind .

An intriguing story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Somewhat compulsive, yet it is hideously sexist and pretty racist too. Also - the narrator sounds a bit like Kenneth Williams! Perhaps the connection with Gaugin gives it some substance. The general impression is rather distasteful somehow. Perhaps Maugham was a misogynist and racist, or just an Englishman of his era, or perhaps it is just easy to confuse the author’s attitude with that of ‘Strickland’, the protagonist.

Interesting but very flawed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm not far in, but it's difficult to get going due to the voice of snide arrogance of the narrator. Having listened to other Somerset Maughan books previously, I built a fondness for the author 's attitude, but the change in narrator grates somewhat.
It was an "Included" book so fortunately didn't cost me anything.

Narrator sounds arrogant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An excellent story and a good listen. The narrator has a real patrician accent that could cut glass and suits the time the book was written.

Enjoyable listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A captivating story with a desperate sadness of the human condition expertly woven so intricately into the characters’ lives.

A Maugham Masterpiece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So beautifully written and the narration was wonderful.What a compelling story with extraordinary,vivid characters.After a slow start, as another commentator has said, the novel gathers pace and is gripping until the very end.I found the ending deeply moving.

A wonderful novel brilliantly narrated.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews