Editing Decline and Fall

{{Short description|1928 novel by Evelyn Waugh}}
{{Other uses}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox book  | 
| name          = Decline and Fall
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = File:Evelyndeclineandfall.jpg
| caption       = First edition cover
| author        = [[Evelyn Waugh]]
| illustrator   = Evelyn Waugh{{cn|date=April 2024}}
| cover_artist  =
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = <!-- [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Novel categorisation]] -->Satire
| publisher     = [[Chapman and Hall]]
| release_date  = 1928
| english_release_date =
|dewey= 823.912
| media_type    =
| pages         = <!-- First edition page count -->
| preceded_by   = <!-- Preceding novel in series -->
| followed_by   = [[Vile Bodies]]
}}
'''''Decline and Fall''''' is the first novel by the English author [[Evelyn Waugh]], first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled ''[[The Temple at Thatch]]'', was destroyed by Waugh while still in manuscript form. ''Decline and Fall'' is based, in part, on Waugh's schooldays at [[Lancing College]], undergraduate years at [[Hertford College, Oxford]], and his experience as a teacher at [[Arnold House, Llanddulas|Arnold House]], a former private school in north Wales.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kermode|first1=Frank|title=Decline and Fall (Introduction)|date=1993|publisher=Everyman's Library|location=London|isbn=1857151569|page=x}}</ref> It is a social [[satire]] that employs the author's characteristic black humour in lampooning various features of British society in the 1920s.

The novel was written at [[Plas Dulas]] in north Wales, while staying with the archaeologist [[Richard MacGillivray Dawkins]].<ref name="bbc">{{cite web| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/northwestwales/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8388000/8388149.stm | title=Writers drawn to Llanddulas mansion | publisher=[[BBC]] | work=[[BBC News]] | location=UK | date=1 December 2009 | access-date=14 February 2025 }}</ref> In 1925, he taught at [[Arnold House, Llanddulas|Arnold House]] preparatory school, nearby in the village of [[Llanddulas]], and his experience during this time influenced the fictional school [[Llanabba Castle]] in the novel.<ref name="evelynwaughsociety">{{cite web| url=https://evelynwaughsociety.org/2011/plas-dulas-to-be-demolished/ | title=Plas Dulas to be demolished | publisher=[[The Evelyn Waugh Society]] | website=evelynwaughsociety.org | first=Antony F. P. | last=Vickery | date=14 December 2011 | access-date=14 February 2025 }}</ref>

The novel's title is a contraction of [[Edward Gibbon]]'s ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]].'' The title alludes also to the German philosopher [[Oswald Spengler]]'s ''[[The Decline of the West]]'' (1918–1922), which first appeared in an English translation in 1926 and which argued, among other things, that the rise of nations and cultures is inevitably followed by their eclipse.

Waugh read both Gibbon and Spengler while writing his first novel.<ref>David Bradshaw, Introduction p. xviii Penguin 2001, ''Decline and Fall'' {{ISBN|978-0-14-118090-8}}</ref> Waugh's satire is unambiguously hostile to much that was in vogue in the late 1920s, and "themes of cultural confusion, moral disorientation and social bedlam&nbsp;... both drive the novel forward and fuel its humour".<ref>David Bradshaw xxv/xxvi introduction 2001 Penguin edition</ref> This "undertow of moral seriousness provides a crucial tension within [Waugh's novels], but it does not dominate them".<ref>Ian Littlewood, ''The Writings of Evelyn Waugh'' Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983 {{ ISBN|9780631136064}}</ref> Waugh himself stated in his author's note to the first edition "Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY".<ref>{{cite book |title=Evelyn Waugh:  The Critical Heritage |date=1984 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |location=London |isbn=978-0710095480 |page=81 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Evelyn_Waugh/JkNeP2w0qD4C |access-date=14 April 2025}}</ref>

In the text of the 1962 Uniform Edition of the novel, Waugh restored a number of words and phrases that he had been asked to suppress for the first edition.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://evelynwaughsociety.org/2017/penguin-uk-issue-tv-tie-in-edition-of-decline-and-fall/|title=Penguin UK Issue TV Tie-in Edition of Decline and Fall | publisher=The Evelyn Waugh Society|website=evelynwaughsociety.org|language=en-US|access-date=3 September 2018}}</ref>

The novel was dedicated to [[Harold Acton]], "in homage and affection".<ref>Acton, ''Memoirs of an Aesthete'' ({{isbn|9780571247660}}), p. 203</ref>

==Plot summary==
Modest and unassuming theology student Paul Pennyfeather falls victim to the drunken antics of the [[Bullingdon Club#Cultural references|Bollinger Club]] and is subsequently expelled from [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] for running through the grounds of [[List of fictional Oxford colleges|Scone College]] without his trousers. Having thereby defaulted on the conditions of his inheritance, he is forced to take a job teaching at an obscure private school in [[Wales]] called Llanabba, run by Dr Fagan. Paul soon discovers that the other masters are all failures in life.

Attracted to the mother of one of his pupils, a wealthy widow called the Honourable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, he is delighted to be hired by her as tutor to her son during the vacation. Living in her country mansion, he becomes aware of her lovers and drug use but fails to realise that her business is running a chain of high-class brothels in Latin America. She however wants to marry him. First, he has to fly to [[Marseille]], where a consignment of her girls bound for [[Brazil]] has been held up by the police, who need bribing. Paul's activities there are shadowed by his college friend, Potts, who now works for the [[League of Nations]] investigating human trafficking.

Back in London, he is arrested on the morning of the wedding and, taking the fall to protect his fiancée's honour, is sentenced to seven years in prison for traffic in prostitution. In jail, he meets several former staff from Llanabba, which has been closed. Unable to wait seven years, Margot marries a government minister, who arranges for Paul to be rushed from prison to a private clinic for an urgent operation. The clinic is run by Dr Fagan, who certifies that Paul died under anaesthetic and puts him on a boat to Greece.

Deciding to resume his interrupted theological studies, Paul grows a heavy moustache and applies under his own name to Scone, saying he is a distant cousin of the dead criminal. The novel ends as it started, with Paul sitting in his room listening to the distant shouts of the Bollinger Club.<ref name="Evelyn Waugh Newsletter Volume 8 Number 3">[http://www.jwww.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/EWN8-3.htm Vile Bodies: A Revolution In Film Art]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, Winter 1974</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/decline-and-fall-evelyn-waughs-orgy-of-bad-taste/|title=Decline and Fall: Evelyn Waugh's orgy of bad taste|last=Heffer|first=Simon|date=29 July 2016|work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=3 September 2018|language=en-GB|issn=0307-1235}}</ref>

==Critical reception==
''[[The Guardian]]'', in 1928, praised the book as "a great lark; its author has an agreeable sense of comedy and characterisation, and the gift of writing smart and telling conversation, while his drawings are quite in tune with the spirit of the tale". The newspaper also compared the superficial presentation in the novel to that employed by [[P. G. Wodehouse]].<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/1928/oct/12/classics Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (classics)] The Guardian. 12 October 1928</ref> [[Arnold Bennett]] hailed it as "an uncompromising and brilliantly malicious satire"<ref>Quoted in Martin Stannard(editor), ''Evelyn Waugh, the Critical Heritage'', RKP 1984</ref> and the writer [[John Mortimer]] called it Waugh's "most perfect novel ... a ruthlessly comic plot."

In his [[biography]] of Waugh, [[journalist]] [[Christopher Sykes (author)|Christopher Sykes]] recalled, "I was in a nursing home when ''Decline and Fall'' came out, and [[Tom Driberg]] visited me and brought a copy.  He began to read out some favourite passages and was literally unable to read them to the end because he and I were so overcome by laughter."<ref>Sykes, Christopher. ''Evelyn Waugh: A Biography''.  p. 85. {{ISBN|0-316-82600-6}}</ref>

In a 2009 episode of ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'', the British actor and comedian [[David Mitchell (comedian)|David Mitchell]] named ''Decline and Fall'' as the book he would take to a desert island, calling it "one of the funniest books I've ever read" and "exactly the sort of novel I would like to have written."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00ln1b2|title=Desert Island Discs – David Mitchell|website=BBC|language=en-GB|access-date=2 November 2018}}</ref>

==In other media==
The novel was dramatised as the 1969 film ''[[Decline and Fall... of a Birdwatcher]]'', starring [[Robin Phillips]], and also by Jeremy Front in a 2008 [[BBC Radio 4]] production starring [[Alistair McGowan]] as Pennyfeather, [[Jim Broadbent]] as Grimes, [[Andrew Sachs]] as Prendergast, [[Edward Hardwicke]] as Dr. Fagan, Jonathan Kidd as Philbrick, [[Joanna David]] as Margot Beste-Chetwynde, [[Emma Fielding]] as Flossie, and [[Richard Pearce (actor)|Richard Pearce]] as Peter.

It was dramatised again in 2015 by BBC Radio 4, with [[Kieran Hodgson]] as Pennyfeather, [[Emilia Fox]] as Margot, [[Tom Hollander]] as Otto, [[John Sessions]] as Grimes, [[Alex Lawther]] as Peter, [[James Fleet]] as Prendergast and [[Geoffrey Whitehead]] as Fagan.

In 2017, the [[BBC]] produced a [[Decline and Fall (TV series)|three-part TV dramatisation]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08l67g5|title=BBC One – Decline and Fall| publisher=[[BBC]] | location=UK |language=en-GB|access-date=3 September 2018}}</ref> starring [[Jack Whitehall]] as Paul Pennyfeather, [[David Suchet]] as Dr Fagan, [[Eva Longoria]] as Margot Beste-Chetwynde, [[Douglas Hodge]] as Captain Grimes, and [[Vincent Franklin]] as Mr Prendergast.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-03-31/meet-the-cast-of-decline-and-fall|title=Meet the cast of Decline and Fall|work=RadioTimes|access-date=1 April 2017|language=en}}</ref> The production was the book's first television adaptation, and received largely positive reviews.  Alastair Mckay with the ''[[Evening Standard]]'' called it "delicately constructed and pitch-perfect."<ref name="mckay">{{cite journal|last1=McKay|first1=Alastair|title=Catch up TV...|journal=Evening Standard|date=7 April 2017|page=41}}</ref> Ellen E. Jones remarked on the show's "many enjoyable performances," especially that of Hodge as the "drink-soaked deviant" Captain Grimes, adding, "Give him a spin-off series immediately."<ref name="daze">{{cite journal|last1=Jones|first1=Ellen E|title=Twenties school daze for Whitehall|journal=Evening Standard|date=31 March 2017|page=57}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{Portal|Novels}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall}}
* {{FadedPage|id=20170625|name=Decline and Fall}}

{{Evelyn Waugh}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Decline And Fall}}
[[Category:1928 British novels]]
[[Category:1928 debut novels]]
[[Category:British comedy novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Evelyn Waugh]]
[[Category:Novels set in the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Chapman & Hall books]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]