Vile Bodies

Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny novel of the Roaring Twenties, with an introduction by Simon James

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 - whether promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, 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 fulfilment of unconscious desires.

'The high point of the experimental, original Waugh'

Malcolm Bradbury, Sunday Times

'This brilliantly funny, anxious and resonant novel ... the difficult edgy guide to the turn of the decade'

Richard Jacobs

'It's Britain's Great Gatsby'

Stephen Fry