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Decline and Fall (1928) was Evelyn Waugh's immensely successful first novel, and it displays not only all of its author's customary satiric genius and flair for unearthing the ridiculous in human nature, but also a youthful willingness to train those weapons on any and every thing in his path. In this fractured picaresque comedy of the hapless Paul Pennyfeather stumbling from one disaster to another, Waugh manages the delicious task of skewering every aspect of the society in which he lived.With an Introduction by Frank KermodeSir Frank Kermode, formerly Lord Northcliffe Professor at London University, is now Professor at Cambridge and Columbia Universities. His books include The Uses of and Continuities.

"Evelyn Waugh's early novels...have an essentially satirical motivation. They turn an impartial and comprehensive ironic vision upon the pretensions and follies of every class, profession, race, and even religion. They gave offense to some readers in their own day, and undoubtedly they still do..."

David Lodge, New York Review of Books, 07/15/1999

"Much of...Waugh's iridescent first novel is imbued with [a] breezy, heartless spirit....And most of the delicious elements that were his hallmarks are present from the beginning....In DECLINE AND FALL, Waugh treated all devotional matters as the raw material of farce. But the concept of a capricious cosmos was already jostling in his mind with the notion of original sin."

Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Monthly, May 2003

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