Decline and Fall
Waugh`s first published novel is a picaresque satire in the manner of Fielding or Sterne. It follows the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather, a divinity student at Oxford who is stripped naked by a gang of drunken classmates one night and subsequently expelled for gross indecency. He takes a job as a schoolmaster in Wales and falls in love with the mother of one of his students, who runs an employment agency for young women who wish to work abroad. His involvement with this enterprise lands him in jail, an experience that does not devastate him as much as one would think: Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison, the author observes. He is liberated by his friends and returns--full circle--to Oxford and the study of theology, this time under an assumed identity. Vicious, outrageous, and sharp, DECLINE AND FALL is one of the funniest and most insightful works Waugh ever wrote.

more details ...