Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 24th September 2014
Hardback
Published: 5th January 2023
Paperback
Published: 9th January 2001
Paperback
Published: 18th June 2018
A Handful of Dust
By (Author) Evelyn Waugh
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
18th June 2018
7th June 2018
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction
Narrative theme: Love and relationships
Narrative theme: Journeys and voyages
FIC
Paperback
240
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 14mm
182g
Twenty new titles in the much-loved and hugely successful Penguin English Library series 'It would be a dull world if we all thought alike.' After 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. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.
Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.