Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Decline and Fall

The adventures of an innocent in London society

by Evelyn Waugh

Penguin, 1960, complete and unabridged, paperback

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“Evelyn Waugh once named the two if his many novels which he liked best.  One of them was Decline and Fall – and the other A Handful of Dust, also published in Penguins.  In both of them (and in Vile Bodies, too) he depicts the values and foibles of Mayfair in that lush period between the wars.  Decline and Fall, the first of these satirical dissections, narrates the paradoxical adventures of an innocent young man caught in the web of London society.  He escapes, in the end, to a saner and happier life, but in the course of his pilgrimage he discovers most of the shams and futilities that disfigure the life of fashion.  There is no solemnity in Evelyn Waugh, however, and he leaves the reader to derive for himself and  social message that may be contained in this vivacious and compassionate story.”