Decline and Fall - An Illustrated Novelette - Evelyn Waugh

1928 - Chapman &, London - First Edition, First Issue
‘Anarchic and experimental... Surely one of the wittiest and most original of first novels. Champagne to the particular.’ - Cyril Connolly, The Modern Movement.

First edition, first issue, of Evelyn Waugh’s first novel. Illustrated with six full-page line drawings by Waugh.

After the book was rejected for indecency by the publisher of his earlier biography of Rossetti, Waugh offered the manuscript to Chapman & Hall, but he did so while his father, who was the managing director of the firm, was away on holiday. The acting-director agreed to publish the novel. Arthur Waugh returned to London to discover that his son was his firm's newest author. When Arthur Waugh's biography was published three years later, however,
Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, the two novels published under his directorship of Chapman & Hall, were not mentioned. The indelicate material, which Martin Stannard has since revealed in fact did go through some "taming" revisions, was perhaps a bit too much for the elder Waugh. 
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Price HK$ 9,500



The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and Unconditional Surrender. - Evelyn Waugh

1952 - Chapman &, London - First Editions
An exceptionally fine set of Waugh’s Second World War trilogy.

‘This war has begun in darkness and it will end in silence ‘– Men at Arms.

‘There was a regulation that if they remained at large in enemy territory for some weeks longer, they could be repatriated to the United States. It was for this that they had made a hazardous parachute jump and destroyed an expensive, very slightly damaged aeroplane.’ – Unconditional Surrender.

‘Beautifully structured and deeply melancholy account of England and the Second World War, which also contains moments and scenes of pure hilarity. Written in a spirit of great tenderness and tolerance and a sort of humility.’ – Callil and Toibin.

‘The finest work of fiction in English to emerge from World War II’ –
The Atlantic (2001)

'Marvellous ... one of the masterpieces of the century' – John Banville,
Irish Times. 
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Price HK$ 12,000



Black Mischief - Evelyn Waugh

1932 - Chapman and Hall Ltd., London - First Edition
‘'We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim . . .' Seth paused in his dictation and gazed out across the harbour where in the fresh breeze of early morning the last dhow was setting sail for the open sea.

A superb copy, in a lovely example of the dust jacket which is notoriously prone to both toning, and also fading of the red vignettes on the spine and front panel.

First edition of Waugh’s satyrical novel set in Africa. Chronicling the efforts of the English-educated Emperor Seth, assisted by a fellow Oxford graduate, Basil Seal, to modernise his kingdom. Believed to have been a satire on Abyssinia, where Waugh spent time as a reporter, and Haile Selassie, although Waugh denied this.
 
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Price HK$ 7,000



A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh

1934 - Chapman and Hall Ltd., London - First Edition
All over England people were waking up, queasy and despondent.

‘Few writers have walked the line between farce and tragedy as nimbly as Evelyn Waugh, who employed the conventions of the comic novel to chip away at the already crumbling English class system. His 1934 novel,
A Handful of Dust, is a sublime example of his bleak satirical style: a mordantly funny exposé of aristocratic decadence and ennui in England between the wars.’ – Simon Leake.

First edition of what many consider one of Waugh’s best works in a rare and superior example of the dust jacket without restoration.
 
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Price HK$ 125,000



Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh

1930 - Chapman &, London - First Edition
First edition of Waugh’s second novel, with the wonderful pictorial title page.

‘In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of 'twenties Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires.’ [Penguin]
 
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Price HK$ 2,000