Books

Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Bob, this body in a fine integument, from Evelyn", and specially bound for presentation. The recipient was Major-General Sir Robert Laycock (1907-1968), Waugh's friend and former commander, with his bookplate on the front pastedown. The two men first met in 1941, when Laycock's battalion was given "the daunting mission of rearguard action in the British defence of Crete. Throughout this action, Laycock's personal assistant was Captain Evelyn Waugh... Laycock and Waugh were in the last British ship to leave the island" (ODNB). The British disaster in Crete inspired Waugh's novel Officers and Gentlemen (1955); he dedicated the work to Laycock, who served as the basis for the novel's central character, Colonel Tommy Blackhouse. Vile Bodies, Waugh's second published novel, sold splendidly on its publication in 1930, going through seven printings in as many weeks; this copy is from the tenth impression, published later the same year. The work established Waugh as the pre-eminent novelist of his generation, and gained him entry into the fashionable drawing rooms of Mayfair. Octavo (193 x 133 mm). Bound for presentation in green half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt. Binding lightly rubbed at extremities, edges and contents foxed, a very good copy.

Vile Bodies is a novel by Evelyn Waugh that satirizes the decadent lifestyles of the 'Bright Young Things' in 1920s London. Full of wit and humor, it paints a vivid picture of a society obsessed with fashion, parties, and scandal.