Vile Bodies

Adam Fenwick-Symes returns to London broke, having lost his only manuscript to customs officials, and desperate to earn enough money to marry Nina Blount. Around him spins the giddy world of the Bright Young Things, a set of aristocrats and hangers-on who race from party to party, feed the gossip columns, and treat everything as a joke. Evelyn Waugh’s 1930 satire captures that frantic gaiety with a cold, brilliant eye, letting the laughter curdle as the fun turns hollow and a war gathers on the horizon. Sharp, fast, and darker than it first appears, it fixed the manners and slang of a doomed generation in print. Free to download here as a PDF and EPUB edition.