[WAUGH, EVELYN]. Brideshead Revisited. The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. A Novel. London: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1945.
FIRST UK EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. Leather-bound; hardcover; octavo (19 x 12 x 2.5 cm); pp. 304. English text. Beautifully bound in modern red crushed morocco by Bayntun-Rivière of Bath, spine lettered in gilt, single gilt fillet framing compartments and boards, double gilt fillet with corner-pieces to turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all page edges gilt, half-title. Printed in Great Britain by Tonbridge Printers Ltd. Condition: FINE. An immaculate copy.
Notes: The first trade edition, finely bound by Bayntun-Riviere of Bath, England. Waugh's masterpiece Brideshead Revisited was written in 1944 from the January to June, while Waugh was recovering after an accident. The author revealed in his autobiography that the story "portrays some aspects of my Oxford life" (Waugh, p. 191); indeed, the character of Sebastian Flyte was based on memories of Alastair Graham, one of Waugh's best friends and "romances" during his university years. The novel explores the theme of Catholicism for the first time, and was described by Waugh as "an attempt to trace the workings of the divine purpose in a pagan world, in the lives of an English Catholic family, half-paganised themselves, in the world of 1929-39" (Wilson, p. 108). This trade edition was preceded only by a small pre-publication issue, privately printed for the author and circulated among friends, such as Nancy Mitford, to receive comments and suggestions for improvements. Evelyn Waugh, A Little Learning: The First Volume of an Autobiography, 1964; John Howard Wilson, Evelyn Waugh: a Literary Biography, 1996. A classic in fine condition.
