Brideshead Revisited (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

A beautiful clothbound edition of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel of duty and desire set against the backdrop of the faded glory of the English aristocracy in the run-up to the Second World War.

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian Flyte at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognise his spiritual and social distance from them.

'Lush and evocative ... Expresses at once the profundity of change and the indomitable endurance of the human spirit'
The Times

Reviews

“Waugh’s most deeply felt novel . . . Brideshead Revisited tells an absorbing story in imaginative terms . . . Mr. Waugh is very definitely an artist, with something like a genius for precision and clarity not surpassed by any novelist writing in English in his time.” –New York Times

“A many-faceted book . . . Beautifully [written] by one of the most exhilarating stylists of our time.” –Newsweek

“First and last an enchanting story . . . Brideshead Revisited has a magic that is rare in current literature. It is a world in itself, and the reader lives in it and is loath to leave it when the last page is turned.” –Saturday Review

“Evelyn Waugh’s most successful novel . . . A memorable work of art.”
–from the Introduction by Frank Kermode