Vile Bodies

Description

Evelyn Waugh's brilliant skewering of the Roaring Twenties, now in wonderful new hardback edition The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.

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.

A hectic piece of savage satire....I laughed until I was driven out of the room.--V.S. Pritchett, The Spectator A savage study in public and private morals....It is uproarious. It is also ferocious.--John K. Hutchens, New York Times A wickedly witty and iridescent novel.--TIME Evelyn Waugh is a satirist, no doubt, but not a skeptic, for he believes, and proves, that amusement can be depriced from the most unpromising material, from people, that is, whose one occupation in life is the quest for amusement, people who give and attend parties.--Saturday Review It may shock you, but it will make you laugh.--New York Times Wonderfully funny.--Jessica Mitford, LIFE