- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New impression edition (Sep 1969)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140000755
- ISBN-13: 978-0140000757
- Product Dimensions: 18 x 11.2 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 107,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
After a wild, drunken party, Paul Pennyfeather is forced to leave Oxford and begin a new life out in the wide world. His experiences take him from a boys' private school in Wales, where he meets some rather strange people, to a life of luxury in a grand country house and the Ritz Hotel, and then to seven years' hard labour in prison. Where will it all end? The black humour of this story about English society in the 1920s is as fresh today as it was when the novel was first written.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Excerpted from Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Mr Sniggs, the Junior Dean, and Mr Postlethwaite, the Domestic Bursar, sat alone in Mr Sniggs’ room overlooking the garden quad at Scone College. From the rooms of Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington, two staircases away, came a confused roaring and breaking of glass. They alone of the senior members of Scone were at home that evening, for it was the night of the annual dinner of the Bollinger Club. The others were all scattered over Boar’s Hill and North Oxford at gay, contentious little parties, or at other senior common-rooms, or at the meetings of learned societies, for the annual Bollinger dinner is a difficult time for those in authority.
It is not accurate to call this an annual event, because quite often the Club is suspended for some years after each meeting. There is tradition behind the Bollinger; it numbers reigning kings among its past members. At the last dinner, three years ago, a fox had been brought in in a cage and stoned to death with champagne bottles. What an evening that had been! This was the first meeting since then, and from all over Europe old members had rallied for the occasion. For two days they had been pouring into Oxford: epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title was there for the beano.
It is not accurate to call this an annual event, because quite often the Club is suspended for some years after each meeting. There is tradition behind the Bollinger; it numbers reigning kings among its past members. At the last dinner, three years ago, a fox had been brought in in a cage and stoned to death with champagne bottles. What an evening that had been! This was the first meeting since then, and from all over Europe old members had rallied for the occasion. For two days they had been pouring into Oxford: epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title was there for the beano.
‘The fines!’ said Mr Sniggs, gently rubbing his pipe along the side of his nose. ‘Oh my! the fines there’ll be after this evening!’
There is some highly prized port in the senior common-room cellars that is only brought up when the College fines have reached £50.
‘We shall have a week of it at least,’ said Mr Postlethwaite, ‘a week of Founder’s port.’
A shriller note could now be heard rising from Sir Alastair’s rooms; any who have heard that sound will shrink at the recollection of it; it is the sound of English county families baying for broken glass. Soon they would all be tumbling out into the quad, crimson and roaring in their bottle-green evening coats, for the real romp of the evening.
‘Don’t you think it would be wiser if we turned out the light?’ said Mr Sniggs.
In the darkness the two dons crept to the window. The quad below was a kaleidoscope of dimly discernible faces.
‘There must be fifty of them at least,’ said Mr Postlethwaite. ‘If only they were all members of the College! Fifty of them at ten pounds each. Oh my!’
‘It’ll be more if they attack the Chapel,’ said Mr Sniggs. ‘Oh, please God, make them attack the Chapel.’
‘I wonder who the unpopular undergraduates are this term. They always attack their rooms. I hope they have been wise enough to go out for the evening.’
‘I think Partridge will be one; he possesses a painting by Matisse or some such name.’
‘And I’m told he has black sheets on his bed.’
‘And Sanders went to dinner with Ramsay MacDonald once.’
‘And Rending can afford to hunt, but collects china instead.’
‘And smokes cigars in the garden after breakfast.’
‘Austen has a grand piano.’
‘They’ll enjoy smashing that.’
‘There’ll be a heavy bill for to-night; just you see! But I confess I should feel easier if the Dean or the Master were in. They can’t see us from here, can they?’
It was a lovely evening. They broke up Mr Austen’s grand piano, and stamped Lord Rending’s cigars into his carpet, and smashed his china, and tore up Mr Partridge’s sheets, and threw the Matisse into his water-jug; Mr Sanders had nothing to break except his windows, but they found the manuscript at which he had been working for the Newdigate Prize Poem, and had great fun with that. Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington felt quite ill with excitement, and was supported to bed by Lumsden of Strathdrummond. It was half-past eleven. Soon the evening would come to an end. But there was still a treat to come. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
'Sent down for indecent behaviour, eh?' said Paul Pennyfeather's guardian. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
'Sent down for indecent behaviour, eh?' said Paul Pennyfeather's guardian. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic,
This review is from: Decline and Fall (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
This is one of the books that made me love english litterature. It is so wonderfully absurd and at the same time accurate in it's description of british society and education around 1930. When I sometime tires of Wodehouse and the constant mix-ups of his (otherwise wonderful) tales about Jeeves & Wooster, Psmith or Blandings Castle, Waugh is my choice. It is down to earth, but extremely funny. Young man Pennyfeather is expelled from Oxford due, through no fault of his own, to indecent behaviour. He becomes schoolmaster at a school in Wales which, frankly, is not very good. He falls in love, and the rest of the plot is for you to find out. I can tell you, however, that in this book Waugh covers so diverse subjects as prisons, religion, education, architecture (at this point, one might rightly wonder if it's Bentham I'm reviewing instead of Waugh, but no!), glamour, greed, insanity, worldwide cooperation, Welsh music, teenage boys and alcohol. And even if you like or dislike some, or most of these things, Waugh makes them seem so absurd that you can't help but smile at his descriptions of everyday life in those very specific circles. Go on and read it - it's cheap, it's a classic and it is one of the most entertaining and clever books I've ever read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
earliest and best,
By
This review is from: Decline and Fall (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Evelyn Waugh was for a long time my favourite writer and I still think this [early] book is his best. The taut, brittle humour is consistent from beginning to end, and the pace never lets up.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent read,
By
This review is from: Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Put out More Flags (Hardcover)
This is a book I read many years ago and was inspired to take up again following the BBC’s Big Read quest; in this they included others of Evelyn Waugh’s works but overlooked this gem. The tale follows the hilarious misadventures of one Paul Pennyfeather. Sent down from Oxford though no fault of his own, Pennyfeather begins his decline and eventual fall in to the depths, encountering along the way a series of incredible characters and unbelievable situations ranging from murder to white slavery but somehow throughout it all seeming to retain his innocence. Despite being written in 1928 Waugh’s writing still remains fresh and his wit sparkling. A truly clever and very funny book.
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