Decline and Fall

First published in 1928, Decline and Fall launched the career of one of the most celebrated satirists of the twentieth century, Evelyn Waugh. This wickedly funny novel follows the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather, a quiet and unsuspecting Oxford student whose life is suddenly derailed after an unjust expulsion from the university.

Forced into the strange world of employment, Paul becomes a schoolmaster at a chaotic Welsh boarding school where incompetence, scandal, and eccentric personalities rule the day. As he navigates a society filled with fraudsters, aristocrats, criminals, and opportunists, Waugh delivers a sharp and unforgettable satire of the institutions and social pretensions of early twentieth-century Britain.

Blending dark humor with biting social commentary, Decline and Fall remains one of the most entertaining and enduring comic novels in modern literature.