(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Evelyn Waugh’s 1934 novel is a bitingly funny vision of aristocratic decadence in England between the wars. It tells the story of Tony Last, who, to the irritation of his wife, is inordinately obsessed with his Victorian Gothic country house and life. When Lady Brenda Last embarks on an affair with the worthless John Beaver out of boredom with her husband, she sets in motion a sequence of tragicomic disasters that reveal Waugh at his most scathing.

The action is set in the brittle social world recognizable from Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, darkened and deepened by Waugh’s own experience of sexual betrayal. As Tony is driven by the urbane savagery of this world to seek solace in the wilds of the Brazilian jungle, A Handful of Dust demonstrates the incomparably brilliant and wicked wit of one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished novelists.

伊夫林•沃（1903—1966）

英國著名小說傢，被譽為“英語文學史上最具摧毀力、成果最顯著的諷刺小說傢之一”。他是一位優秀的文體傢，作品的文字簡潔，文筆辛辣，結構巧妙。

1903年，伊夫林•沃齣生於英國漢普斯特德的一個文學世傢，父親是著名齣版商和文學評論傢。沃從小受傢庭環境的影響，熱愛文學。自1928年發錶第一部長篇小說《衰落與瓦解》，一舉成名後，他先後齣版瞭20餘部長篇小說，多部短篇小說集，以及不少遊記。

1998年，著名的蘭登書屋現代文庫評選齣“20世紀百部最佳英文小說”，沃有三部作品入選，包括《一抔塵土》（1934）、《獨傢新聞》（1938）、《故園風雨後》（1945）。