月亮与六便士

    W. 毛姆（1874年 – 1965），是19世纪的“70后”。他以剧作家、小说家而闻名于世。而其小说受欢迎程度，可以从出版商支付的版税里窥视得出来。他是20世纪30年代版税*获得者。     为什么叫“月亮与六便士”？其实，用毛姆自己的话说，这个书名的意义并没有在书里得到应有的展示，而是出自某评论家在评论上述《人性的枷锁》（参见“*经典英语文库”*辑书目）时所写的某句话。原话如下：《人性的枷锁》里的主人公菲利普•凯利（Philip Carey）被形容为一个太过执着找寻月亮的家伙，以至于他从来就没发现过脚底下就有一块六便士。毛姆后来这样解释道：“假如你低头在地上不住地要找寻一块六便士硬币，头也不抬起来一下，那么，你就会丢掉月亮。” 作者表述上感觉很神秘，其实，用中国老话说，大概就是塞翁失马的意思罢。
【推荐语】
    “*经典英语文库”自2013年8月上市至今，整套图书已出版六辑共90部作品。图书选本方面，皆来自世界经典名著，涉及政治、艺术、人文、诗歌、小说等各个领域，原文呈现名著原貌，满足不同读者的阅读需求，《了不起的盖茨比》《哈姆雷特》等经典读本更是为广大读者所追捧。图书设计上，完全遵循国外名著图书的经典流行本规范，掌中书的大小便携、易读；封面设计、正文版式、印刷材质等方面更是精益求精，力求将*经典、*纯粹的外国文学带给广大的中国读者，更新大家的英文图书阅读习惯。
【作者】
William Somerset Maugham       William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874-16 December 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.       After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a doctor. The first run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time.      During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he traveled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.