INSCRIBED TO DESMOND MacCARTHY
Decline and Fall
Chapman & Hall, 1928.
Second impression. Original red and black patterned boards lettered in gilt. Inscribed by Waugh on the front free endpaper "For Desmond MacCarthy from Evelyn Waugh with his gratitude Dec 1928." Later ownership inscription to front pastedown. Six full page line drawings by the author. A very good copy, slightly cocked with some wear to the spine ends.
Desmond MacCarthy was a literary critic and an important member of the Bloomsbury Group who since 1928 had been the editor of the monthly review Life And Letters. He commissioned Waugh to write an essay on Ronald Firbank for the March 1929 issue, and in 1931 published the first chapter of Black Mischief in the magazine. Sykes describes MacCarthy at this time as Waugh's "influential admirer". Waugh seemed happy to repay his patronage in nepotism and so, for a short time in 1932, Waugh employed MacCarthy's daughter Rachael as his secretary.
A fine association copy of the author's brilliant first novel, described by Connolly as "anarchic and experimental, surely one of the wittiest and most original of first novels."
Connolly 99: 58; Sykes 97, 117
Stock ID: 36571
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