Put Out More Flags (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Waugh, Evelyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141184019 ISBN 13: 9780141184012

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2000

Synopsis

Upper-class rogues, bohemians, dowagers, socialites, bureaucrats and delinquent evacuees prepare for England to change forever, in this hilarious and deadly serious 1942 satire on the 'phoney war'

The hideous, then unfamiliar shriek of the air-raid sirens sang out over London

What happened to the characters of Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies when the war broke out? Put Out More Flags shows them adjusting to the changing social pattern of the times. Some of them play a valorous part; others, like the scapegrace Basil Sea, disclose their incorrigible habit of self-preservation in all circumstances. Basil's contribution to the war effort involves the use of his peculiar talents in such spheres of opportunity as the Ministry of Information and an obscure section of Military Security - adventures which incite Evelyn Waugh to another pungent satire upon the coteries of Mayfair.

About this title

Review:

a wicked satire in the well-known Waugh manner (The New York Times)

a novel of breathtaking symmetry, grace, craft, and discipline (L. E. Sissman The Atlantic)

About the Author:

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies, Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0141184019
• ISBN 13: 9780141184012
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304