Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Put Out More Flags Evelyn Waugh

Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Put Out More Flags Evelyn Waugh Publisher: Everyman’s Library Hardcover ISBN: 9781857152739 This volume brings together the three novels that form Evelyn Waugh’s celebrated informal trilogy, along with selected stories and travel writing, presented here in a centenary edition.

In Decline and Fall, the novel that first brought Waugh to public attention, he recounts the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather, whose downfall exposes, with dry wit, the absurdities and moral decay of the British ruling class. In Vile Bodies, the Bright Young Things of the 1920s—rebels against convention and privilege—are portrayed with both affection and razor-sharp satire as their glittering world unravels. Finally, Put Out More Flags brings Waugh’s dark comic vision into the Second World War, examining how the characters introduced earlier adapt, compromise, and survive amid the realities of conflict.

By turns affectionate and incisive, these novels combine elegance of style with surgical precision, and remain enduring comic masterpieces, etched with Waugh’s unmistakable, dark humour.

With an introduction by Frank Kermode