A Handful of Dust

(Paperback)

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New Penguin Essentials edition of the stylish satire that combines tragedy, comedy and savage irony. 'A whole Gothic world had come to grief . . .' Beautiful Lady Brenda Last lives at Hetton Abbey, a crumbling Gothic monstrosity that is her husband Tony's pride and joy. Bored and restless after seven years of marriage, she drifts into an affair with a worthless young socialite. Abandoning the country for the glamorous yet shallow London scene, Brenda imagines divorce will bring happiness. Instead she and Tony feel lost and isolated - victims of the wreckless times in which they live . . .

Reviews

A vicious, witty novel. New York Times

Waughs technique is relentless and razor-edgedBy any standard it is super satire. Chicago Daily News

The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced. New Statesman & Nation

A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its authorUnquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written. Saturday Review

Author Bio

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903. He was educated at Lancing and Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first work, a life of Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies, Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he travelled extensively and published a number of travel books. In 1939 he was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards. He went on to write a number of other books, including Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Men at Arms (1952). Evelyn Waugh died in 1966.