A Handful of Dust (Penguin Modern Classics) Book

Evelyn Waugh's celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, with an introduction by Philip EadeAfter seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. Brilliantly combining tragedy, comedy and savage irony, A Handful of Dust captures the irresponsible mood of the 'crazy and sterile generation' between the wars. This breakdown of the Last marriage is a painful, comic re-working of Waugh's own divorce, and a symbol of the disintegration of society.'One of the twentieth century's most chilling and bitter novels; and one of its best'Nicholas Lezard, Guardian'One of the most distinguished novels of the century'Frank Kermode'This is a masterpiece of stylish satire, and is funny, too ... a marvellous book'John Banville, Irish Times

In his elegant, malicious prose, Evelyn Waugh satirizes British society as he saw it over three decades. From Work Suspended, where Plant, a writer of detective fiction, puts his incomplete novel in a drawer until such time as he can finish it (that is to say after the war), to Basil Seal Rides Again, in which the hero of Black Mischief defeats the children of the Sixties, these stories encompass much of the social milieu of the twentieth century. The volume also includes the fragment Charles Ryder's Schooldays, which sketches the background to the narrator of Brideshead Revisited.

From Work Suspended where Plant a writer of detective fiction puts his incomplete novel in a drawer until such time as he can finish it to Basil Seal Rides Again in which the hero of Black Mischief defeats the children of the Sixties this volume includes stories that encompass much of the social milieu of the 20th century.

Evelyn Waugh, Robert Murray Davis (Editor)