WAUGH, Evelyn. Decline & Fall. (REVISED EDITION WITH A NEW PREFACE AND A PRESENTATION COPY - 1962)

AUTHOR: WAUGH, Evelyn 

TITLE: Decline & Fall.

PUBLISHER: London: Chapman & Hall, 1962.

DESCRIPTION: REVISED EDITION WITH A NEW PREFACE AND A PRESENTATION COPY. 1 vol., illustrated with plates after Waugh, inscribed on the front blank endleaf  "For Patrick [Balfour] with regards from Evelyn", publisher's original gilt lettered blue cloth binding, with the DJ, not price clipped.

CONDITION: Minor foxing to endleaves otherwise NEAR FINE/VG.

PROVENANCE: Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross (1904-1976).   Evelyn and Patrick first met at Oxford in the early 1920s, and later in that decade were members of the social set known as The Bright Young Things, satirized in Waugh’s novel Vile Bodies.  In the book, Balfour serves as a model for Lord Balcairn the gossip columnist on the fictitious Daily Excess, whose column, written under the name Mr Chatterbox, is taken over by the central character, Adam Fenwick-Symes. In real life, Balfour, who was heir to the Barony of Kinross, wrote a gossip column for the Evening Standard, and was one of a number of aristocratic young men employed by mass circulation newspapers to recount the exploits of their friends and relations. Waugh often teasingly referred to Balfour as ‘Mr Gossip’.