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Faded Page is an archive of eBooks that are provided completely free to everyone. The books are produced by volunteers all over the world, and we believe they are amongst the highest quality eBooks anywhere. Every one has been scanned, run through OCR software, proofed, formatted and assembled extremely carefully, using hundreds of volunteer hours. These books are public domain in Canada (because we follow the Canadian copyright laws), but if you are in another country, you should satisfy yourself that you are not breaking the copyright laws of your own country by downloading them. You are free to do whatever you like with these books, but we hope that mainly...you will enjoy reading them.
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Featured Text PREVIOUS
I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
A Handful of Dust takes on the same theme of a decaying civilization as Eliot’s poem. With its isolated characters representing a civilization in decline, Waugh presents a story laced with cynicism and truth satirizing the gentry class of English life between world wars. The main characters, Tony and Brenda Last, have wealth but are lacking in other qualities. The plot is a series of absurd situations in which the Lasts and their friends ignore the most sensible course and sail into the rocky reef completely oblivious to the fact that they will most likely crash.
Made into a movie of the same name in 1988, A Handful of Dust is #34 on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list.
We currently have seven Evelyn Waugh titles at this site with more to come. Readers who enjoy Evelyn Waugh’s brand of satire and characteristic black humor in lampooning various features of British society might also enjoy Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Put Out More Flags, or Brideshead Revisited.