View source for A Handful of Dust

{{Short description|1934 novel by Evelyn Waugh}}
{{For multi|the 1988 film based on the novel|A Handful of Dust (film)|the New Zealand band|A Handful of Dust (band)}}
{{Featured article}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox book| <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name     = A Handful of Dust
| title_orig  =
| translator  =
| image    = Dust300.jpg
| caption   = Cover of first UK edition (1934)
| author    = [[Evelyn Waugh]]
| cover_artist =
| country   = United Kingdom
| language   = English
| series    =
| genre    = Fiction
| publisher  = {{plainlist|
* [[Chapman & Hall]] (hardcover)
* [[Penguin Books]] (paperback)}}
| release_date = {{plainlist|
* 1934 (Hardback)
* 1951 (Paperback)}}
| isbn     =
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}

'''''A Handful of Dust''''' is a novel by the British writer [[Evelyn Waugh]]. First published in 1934, it is often grouped with the author's early, satirical comic novels for which he became famous in the pre–[[Second World War]] years. Some commentators regard it as a transitional work due to its serious undertones, pointing towards Waugh's Catholic postwar fiction.

The story concerns the misfortunes of Tony Last, a contented but shallow English country squire who, having been betrayed by his wife and seen his illusions shattered one by one, seeks solace by joining an expedition to the [[Amazon rainforest|Brazilian jungle]], only to find himself trapped in a remote outpost as the prisoner and plaything of an insane settler. Waugh incorporated several autobiographical elements into the story, notably his own recent desertion by his young wife. In 1933–34 he had undertaken a journey into the South American interior, and a number of incidents and personalities from the voyage are incorporated into the novel. Tony's singular fate in the jungle was first used by Waugh as the subject of an independent short story, published in 1933 under the title "The Man Who Liked Dickens".

The book's initial critical reception was modest, but it was popular with the public and has never been out of print. In the years since publication the book's reputation has grown; it is generally considered one of Waugh's best works, and has more than once figured on unofficial lists of the 20th century's best novels.

Waugh had converted to [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]] in 1930, after which his satirical, secular writings drew hostility from some Catholic quarters. He did not introduce overt religious themes into ''A Handful of Dust'', but later explained that he intended the book to demonstrate the futility of humanist, as distinct from religious, especially Catholic, values. The book has been dramatised for radio, stage and screen.

==Plot==
Tony Last is a country gentleman living with his wife, Brenda, and their eight-year-old son, John Andrew, at Hetton Abbey, Tony’s ancestral home. Hetton house is a Victorian [[neo-Gothic]] pastiche described as architecturally devoid of interest, by a local guide book, and ugly, by Brenda, yet Hetton Abbey is Tony's pride and joy. Content with country life, Tony is unaware of Brenda's boredom and dissatisfaction and of John Andrew's waywardness. In the event, Brenda meets John Beaver, and, despite acknowledging that he is a dull and insignificant man, she begins a sexual affair with him. She then starts spending her weeks in London, and persuades Tony to finance a small [[Apartment|flat]], which she rents from Mrs. Beaver, John's mother, who is a canny businesswoman. Although the affair between Brenda and John is known to their social circle in London, Tony remains oblivious; attempts by Brenda and her friends to set him up with a mistress are absurdly unsuccessful.

Brenda is in London when their son is killed in a riding accident. On being told that "John is dead", Brenda at first thinks that it is Beaver who has died; on learning that the dead John is her son John Andrew, Brenda betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary "Thank God!" After the funeral, she tells Tony she wants a divorce so she can marry Beaver. Tony is shattered, but agrees to protect Brenda's social reputation by allowing [[Collusive lawsuit|her to divorce him]], and to provide her with £500 a year. After spending an awkward weekend in [[Brighton]] with Milly — a woman hired to contrive divorce evidence — Tony learns from Brenda's brother that, encouraged by Beaver, Brenda is now demanding £2,000 a year: a sum that would require Tony to sell Hetton. Tony's illusions are shattered. Luckily, because Milly brought her child with her to Brighton Tony is able to establish he did not commit adultery. He withdraws from the divorce negotiations, and announces that he intends to travel for six months. On his return, he says, Brenda may have her divorce, but without any financial settlement.

With no prospect of Tony's money, Beaver loses interest in Brenda. Meanwhile, Tony has met the explorer Dr Messinger, and joins him on an expedition in search of a supposed lost city in the [[Amazon rainforest]]. On the outward journey, Tony has a shipboard romance with Thérèse de Vitré, a young girl whose [[Roman Catholicism]] causes her to shun him when he admits he is married. In Brazil, Messinger proves an incompetent organiser; he cannot control the native guides, who abandon him and Tony in the depths of the jungle. They attempt to trek out, but Tony becomes too ill to walk. Messinger leaves in their only canoe to find help, but is swept over a waterfall and killed.

In delirium, Tony wanders until he is rescued by Mr. Todd, a [[British Guiana]]n, who rules a small, extended family in a clearing in the jungle, where Todd nurses Tony back to health. Although illiterate, Todd owns copies of the complete works of [[Charles Dickens]] and asks Tony to read to him. When Tony's health recovers and he asks to be helped on his way, Todd repeatedly demurs. Tony continues with the readings, but the atmosphere becomes menacing, as Tony understands that he is being held against his will. When a search party of Europeans approaches the jungle settlement, Todd sedates Tony, keeps him hidden, and gives the search party Tony's wristwatch because "they wanted something to take back to England, where a reward is being offered for news of [Tony]". When Tony awakens he learns that his hopes of rescue are gone, and that he is condemned to indefinitely read Dickens to his captor in the Amazonian jungle. Back in England, Tony's social circle accept his death.  Tony's cousins inherit Hetton Abbey and erect a memorial to Tony; Brenda marries a friend of Tony's.

==Background==

[[File:Evelynwaugh.jpeg|thumb|upright|Evelyn Waugh (photographed by [[Carl Van Vechten]], December 1940)]]
[[Evelyn Waugh]], born in 1903, was the younger son of [[Arthur Waugh]], a writer and literary figure who was the managing director of the London publishing firm of [[Chapman & Hall]]. After attending [[Lancing College]] and [[Hertford College, Oxford]], Waugh taught for three years in a series of private preparatory schools before beginning his career as a writer.<ref name= odnb>{{cite ODNB|last= Stannard|first= Martin|title= Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St John|year= 2004|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36788?docPos=1|doi= 10.1093/ref:odnb/36788|access-date= 12 November 2014}} {{subscription required}}</ref> His first commercially printed work was a short story, "The Balance", which Chapman and Hall included in a 1926 anthology.<ref>Hastings, p. 145</ref> He worked briefly as a ''[[Daily Express]]'' reporter,<ref>Sykes, pp. 72–73</ref> and wrote a short biography of the pre-Raphaelite painter [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] before achieving success in 1928 with the publication of his comic novel ''[[Decline and Fall]]''. By the end of 1932 Waugh had written two further novels, ''[[Vile Bodies]]'' and ''[[Black Mischief]]'', and two travel books. His professional successes coincided with private upheavals; in June 1928 he married Evelyn Gardner, but just over a year later the marriage ended when she declared her love for the couple's mutual friend [[John Heygate]]. Reconciliation proved impossible, and Waugh commenced divorce proceedings in September 1929.<ref name= odnb/> At the same time, Waugh was undergoing instruction which led to his reception, in September 1930, into the [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic Church]].<ref>Sykes, pp. 107–08</ref>

Waugh's adherence to Catholic teaching on divorce caused him frustration while awaiting the possible annulment of his marriage.<ref name=S282>Stannard 1993, pp. 282–83</ref> He had fallen in love with [[Teresa Jungman]], a lively socialite whose Catholicism precluded any intimacy in their relationship since in the eyes of the Church Waugh remained married.<ref name= S282/><ref>Stannard 1993, p. 225</ref> Waugh's conversion did not greatly affect the acerbic and sharply satirical tone of his fiction—his principal characters were frequently amoral and their activities sometimes shocking. Waugh claimed "the right to write of man's depravity in such a fashion as to make it unattractive".<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 340–41</ref> When ''Black Mischief'' was published in 1932, the editor of the Catholic journal ''[[The Tablet]]'', Ernest Oldmeadow, launched a violent attack on the book and its author, stating that the novel was "a disgrace to anybody professing the Catholic name".<ref>Stannard 1984, p. 133</ref> Waugh, wrote Oldmeadow, "was intent on elaborating a work outrageous not only to Catholic but to ordinary standards of modesty".<ref>Stannard 1984, pp. 135–36</ref> Waugh made no public rebuttal of these charges; an open letter to [[Francis Bourne|the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster]] was prepared, but on the advice of Waugh's friends was not sent.<ref>Amory (ed.), pp. 72–78</ref><ref>Stannard 1993, p. 339</ref>

==Creation==

===South American journey===
In 1932 Waugh embarked on an extended voyage to South America. His decision to absent himself may have been a reaction to his increasingly complicated emotional life; while his passion for Teresa Jungman remained unrequited<!--unrequited (she had no feelings for him), or unfulfilled/unconsummated?-->, he was involved in various unsatisfactory casual sexual liaisons, and was himself being pursued by the much older [[Hazel Lavery]].<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 306–07</ref> The choice of South America was probably influenced by [[Peter Fleming (writer)|Peter Fleming]], the literary editor of ''[[The Spectator]]''. Fleming had recently returned from an expedition to Brazil seeking traces of [[Percy Fawcett|Colonel Percy Fawcett]] who, in 1925, had disappeared in Brazil while searching for a fabled lost city.<ref>Hastings, pp. 267–68</ref>

Having seen ''Black Mischief'' launched to mixed but generally favourable critical comment (Oldmeadow's intervention was not immediate),<ref>Stannard 1993, p. 304</ref> Waugh sailed from [[Tilbury]] on 2 December 1932. He arrived in [[Guyana|British Guiana]] on 23 December, and after some days of indecision opted to accompany the district commissioner for [[Rupununi]] on a journey into the interior. He hoped that he might reach [[Manaus]], a large city deep within the Brazilian jungle, but transport proved unreliable, and he got no further than the border town of [[Boa Vista, Roraima|Boa Vista]].<ref name= S127>Sykes, pp. 127–28</ref><ref>Davie (ed.), p. 372</ref> On the way, at one of his overnight stopping points, he encountered Mr Christie, an elderly mixed-race settler who greeted him by saying, "I was expecting you. I was warned in a vision of your approach".<ref>Waugh: ''Ninety-two Days'', pp. 86–87</ref> The two enjoyed an agreeable dinner together, where Christie talked of the "Fifth Kingdom" (a biblical prophecy from the [[Book of Daniel]]). He told Waugh that he had seen the entire gathering of the saints in heaven—surprisingly few, he said—but could not count them because they were incorporeal.<ref>Hastings, p. 275</ref> Waugh added Christie to his "treasury of eccentrics", set aside for future literary use.<ref>Waugh: ''Ninety-two Days'', p. 234</ref>

==="The Man Who Liked Dickens"===
Waugh arrived at Boa Vista on 4 February 1933, to find no boats available to take him on to Manaus. Days of inactivity and boredom followed, with "nothing to read except some lives of the Saints in French and [[Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet|Bossuet]]'s sermons".<ref>Davie (ed.), pp. 370–71</ref> Waugh passed some of the time by writing a short story; although not identified in the diaries, this story has been generally accepted as "The Man Who Liked Dickens".<ref>Sykes, p. 131</ref><ref>Stannard 1993, p. 325</ref>{{refn|Hastings observes that Waugh's diaries date the writing of the story to between 12–14 February. She believes that although Waugh may have begun the story in Boa Vista, it unlikely that a story of this length and complexity could be completed in two days and notes that story incorporates events that occurred after Waugh left Boa Vista.<ref>Hastings, p. 278</ref> For example, on his way back from Boa Vista Waugh spent eight days at the St Ignatius Mission in Bon Success, where he records that he found novels by Dickens in the Mission library, and read ''[[Dombey and Son]]'' and ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]'' "with avid relish".<ref>Stannard 1993, p. 329</ref><ref>Davie (ed.), p. 374</ref>|group= n}} Apart from using different names and some minor details, this 1933 story is the same as the episode that Waugh used the next year as chapter VI, "Du Côté de Chez Todd", of ''A Handful of Dust'': an elderly settler (modelled in manner, speech and appearance on Christie), rescues and holds captive a lost explorer and requires him, if he wishes to eat, to read aloud the novels of Dickens, in perpetuity.<ref name=W104>Wykes, pp. 104–05</ref><ref name= Meckier>{{cite journal|last= Meckier|first= Jerome|title= Why the Man Who Liked Dickens Reads Dickens Instead of Conrad: Waugh's a Handful of Dust|jstor= 1345308|journal= Novel: A Forum on Fiction|volume= 13|issue= 2|date= Winter 1980|pages= 171–72|doi= 10.2307/1345308}} {{subscription required}}</ref> The story was published in 1933, in America in ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Hearst's International–Cosmopolitan]]'', and in Britain in ''[[The Pall Mall Magazine|Nash's Pall Mall Magazine]]''.<ref name= Slater>Slater (ed.), pp. 593–95</ref> In an article written many years later, Waugh explained how the story became the basis for his next novel: "The idea [for the short story] came quite naturally from the experience of visiting a lonely settler [Christie]&nbsp;... and reflecting how easily he could hold me prisoner. Then, after the short story was written and published, the idea kept working in my mind. I wanted to discover how the prisoner got there, and eventually the thing grew into a study of other sorts of savage at home and the civilized man’s helpless plight among them."<ref name=FanFare>{{cite journal|author-link=Evelyn Waugh |last=Waugh |first=Evelyn |title=Fan-Fare: An answer to the ladies all over the U.S.A. |url=http://bridesheadcastle.tumblr.com/post/4524122474/fan-fare-an-nswer-to-the-ladies-all-over-the-u-s-a |archive-url=https://archive.today/20141104043834/http://bridesheadcastle.tumblr.com/post/4524122474/fan-fare-an-nswer-to-the-ladies-all-over-the-u-s-a |url-status=dead |archive-date=4 November 2014 |journal=Life (International: Chicago) |date=8 April 1946 |pages=53–60 }}</ref>

===Writing and title history===
[[File:Easton Court - geograph.org.uk - 168425.jpg|thumb|left|The Easton Court Hotel, Chagford, where Waugh finished writing ''A Handful of Dust'' in spring, 1934]]

On his return to England in May 1933, Waugh, short of cash, had to complete numerous writing commitments before he could begin work on the projected novel. In October–November he wrote his account of the South American journey, which he called ''Ninety-two Days''.<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 343–44</ref> He then went to [[Fez, Morocco|Fez]] in Morocco, to begin the novel in warmth and solitude.<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 356–57</ref> In January he wrote to [[Lady Mary Lygon|Mary Lygon]], reporting that he had written 18,500 words of "my filthy novel",<ref>Amory (ed.), p. 84</ref> and later he told Katharine Asquith: "I have just killed a little boy at a lawn meet & made his mother commit adultery&nbsp;... so perhaps you won't like it after all".<ref>Amory (ed.), p. 85</ref> By 10 February he had reached the half-way point—45,000 words—but was uncertain how the story should proceed, and  returned to England at the end of February with most of the second half unwritten.<ref name= S360>Stannard 1993, pp. 360–61</ref> He finished the book at the Easton Court Hotel at [[Chagford]], in [[Devon]], a regular retreat that he used when completing writing projects.<ref>Hastings, pp. 247–46 and 298</ref> By mid-April the book was with his publishers, Chapman & Hall, and Waugh was busy correcting the proofs.<ref>Stannard 1993, p. 364</ref>

Waugh's agent [[A. D. Peters]] sold the pre-publication serialisation rights to the American monthly magazine ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]''.<ref name= H298/> Because the "Mr Todd" episode had been published as a short story the previous year, for the purposes of the serialisation Waugh provided an alternative ending. In this, the whole Brazilian adventure was replaced by a brief coda, in which Tony returns from a luxury cruise to be greeted by a chastened Brenda asking to be reconciled. Tony agrees, but, unknown to her, he decides to keep her London flat for his own purposes.<ref>Hastings, pp. 298 and 310</ref> Waugh's biographer [[Selina Hastings (writer)|Selina Hastings]] describes this ending as "artistically far more complementary" than that used in the book version;<ref name= H298>Hastings, p. 298</ref> an earlier biographer, [[Christopher Sykes (author)|Christopher Sykes]], thought that had this alternative been retained in the book version, the novel would not have acquired its later distinction.<ref name= Sykes13>Sykes, p. 138</ref>

In March 1933 Waugh wrote to Peters from Chagford to say that he intended to call the novel ''A Handful of Ashes''.<ref>Amory (ed.), p. 87</ref> This title was disliked by ''Harpers''; an alternative, ''Fourth Decade'', was also considered and rejected.<ref name= H298/> Finally, the story was serialised under the title ''A Flat in London'', and the chosen book title was ''A Handful of Dust''—taken from a line in [[T. S. Eliot]]'s poem ''[[The Waste Land]]'': "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." The line is within the section of the poem entitled "The Burial of the Dead", which depicts a comfortless, lifeless land of desert and rubble, reflecting the empty moral ambience of the novel.<ref name= Firchow>{{cite journal|last= Firchow|first= Peter E.|title= In Search of A Handful of Dust: The Literary Background of Evelyn Waugh's Novel|jstor= 30053193|journal= Journal of Modern Literature|volume= 3|issue= 2|date= 1971–72|pages= 406–16}} {{subscription required}}</ref>{{refn|In his introduction to the 1997 Penguin edition of ''A Handful of Dust'', Robert Murray Davis argues that the novel's vision is bleaker than that of the poem, the last lines of which suggest some hope of future salvation. The novel, says Davis, "rejects even that faint consolation".<ref>Davis, p. xv</ref> |group= n}} The title phrase had been used earlier by Joseph Conrad in the story "Youth";<ref>{{cite web|author-link=Joseph Conrad |last=Conrad |first=Joseph |title=Youth |url=http://www3.nd.edu/~cvandenb/Conrad.Youth.pdf |publisher=University of Adelaide(ebook) |year=2004 |page=25 |access-date=18 July 2016 |quote=...the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160803225931/http://www3.nd.edu/~cvandenb/Conrad.Youth.pdf |archive-date=3 August 2016 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> by [[Tennyson]] in ''[[Maud (poem)|Maud]]'';<ref>{{cite book|author-link= Alfred, Lord Tennyson|last= Tennyson|first= Alfred|title= Maud and Other Poems|url= https://archive.org/details/maudotherpoems00tennrich|publisher= Edward Moxon|location= London|year= 1855|quote= Dead, long dead! And my heart is a handful of dust (Part V stanza 1)}}</ref> and by [[John Donne]] in his ''Meditations''.<ref>{{cite web|author-link= John Donne|last= Donne|first= John|title=IV. Meditation|publisher= Christian Classics Ethereal library|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/donne/devotions.iv.iii.iv.i.html|website=John Donne's Devotions|access-date=16 September 2015|quote=...what’s become of man’s great extent and proportion, when himself shrinks himself and consumes himself to a handful of dust}}</ref>

==Themes==

===Autobiographical===
In his study of Waugh's literary life, David Wykes describes ''A Handful of Dust'' as "a courageous and skilful act of fictional autobiography", driven by the trauma of the writer's divorce without which, Wykes maintains, the book would not have been written.<ref>Wykes, p. 35</ref> Waugh, says his biographer Martin Stannard, was "dredging the memory of his personal agony" in documenting the breakdown of the Lasts' marriage.<ref name= S360/> The critic [[Cyril Connolly]], whose first reaction to the work had been negative, later called it "the only book which understands the true horror of the withdrawal of affection in an affair from [the point of view of] the innocent party".<ref>Lewis, p. 472</ref>

Wykes believes that, of the novel's three central characters, only Tony is representative of his real-life equivalent—Waugh in his pre-Catholic irreligious state.<ref name= Wykes106>Wykes, pp. 106–07</ref> Brenda is portrayed in the novel as typical of many of the women in Waugh's early stories—well-bred, trivial and faithless—but Wykes argues that she is not a representation of Evelyn Gardner, "neither in inward nor outward qualities". Nor, he asserts, is Beaver intended as an accurate portrayal of  Evelyn Gardner's lover, the "dreadful nullity" of Beaver being a form of literary revenge on the erudite Heygate.<ref name= Wykes106/> There is general agreement among commentators that other characters are drawn from life: Mr Todd is clearly based on the eccentric but rather less sinister Mr Christie;<ref name= W104/><ref>Hastings, p. 279</ref> Dr Messinger, the incompetent explorer, reflects W. E. Roth, the curator of the [[Georgetown, Guyana|Georgetown]] museum whom Waugh considered accompanying into the jungle, only to be dissuaded by reports of Roth's irresponsibility and disregard of danger.<ref>Hastings, p. 272</ref> Thérèse de Vitré, the object of Tony's forlorn attempt at a shipboard romance, was named "Bernadette" in the original manuscript; the change was made as a reference to Waugh's platonic friend Teresa Jungman.<ref name= S382>Stannard 1993, p. 382</ref> Thérèse announces her destiny to marry a rich Catholic, and, in an echo of Jungman, recoils from Tony when she discovers that he still has a wife.<ref>McDonnell, pp. 24–25</ref> The culmination of Tony's misfortunes, his enslavement to Mr Todd and Dickens, is foreshadowed in Waugh's life by his father's habit of reading his favourite literature aloud to his family, three or four evenings a week: "most of Shakespeare, most of Dickens, most of Tennyson&nbsp;... stepping about the room and portraying the characters&nbsp;... he held us enthralled".<ref>Waugh: ''A Little Learning'', pp. 71–72</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last= Greenberg|first= Jonathan|title= 'Was Anyone Hurt?': The Ends of Satire in ''A Handful of Dust'' |jstor= 1346095|journal= Novel: A Forum on Fiction|volume= 36 |issue= 3|date= Summer 2003|pages= 351–73|doi= 10.1215/ddnov.036030351}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

The art historian John Richardson, however, wrote, in the article "Sybil Colefax, Lion Hunter" (House & Garden, September 1983), that the society decorator Lady Colefax "was the model for the deadly decorator, Mrs Beaver (as, allegedly, her son Michael was the model for Mrs Beaver's son John)."

===Satire and realism===
{{Quote box|width=350px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align=right|quote= "Are [my] books meant to be satirical? No. Satire flourishes in a stable society and presupposes homogeneous standards&nbsp;... It is aimed at inconsistency and hypocrisy. It exposes polite cruelty and folly by exaggerating them. It seeks to produce shame. All this has no place in the Century of the Common Man where vice no longer pays lip service to virtue." |salign = left|source= Evelyn Waugh in 1946, answering questions from American readers.<ref name= FanFare/> }}
Critics and commentators have generally acknowledged that ''A Handful of Dust'' stands apart from Waugh's other prewar fiction. [[Philip Toynbee]] describes it as a turning point in Waugh's journey from outright satire to disillusioned realism: "Much of this book is in the old manner, funny-preposterous laced with funny-bitter, but the whole tone and atmosphere are violently changed when the little boy is killed".<ref>{{cite news|author-link= Philip Toynbee|last= Toynbee|first= Philip|title= Evelyn Waugh|newspaper= The Observer|date= 29 October 1961|page= 21|id= {{ProQuest|475527219}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Likewise  Gerald Gould in ''[[The Observer]]'', reviewing the book's initial publication in 1934: "Here was the old gorgeous, careless note of contempt and disillusionment. Gradually, implacably, the note changes and deepens".<ref name= obs>{{cite news|last= Gould|first= Gerald|title= New Novels: A Remarkable Batch|newspaper= The Observer|date= 2 September 1934|page= 9|id= {{ProQuest|481449937}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref>  A later critic, John Cunningham, recognises that stylistically, the book is in a different category from Waugh's other 1930s novels, both more ambitious and more ambiguous. Although, says Cunningham, "[i]t provokes as much knowing laughter as Waugh's other satires of manners", it is a significant step away from its predecessors, towards the Catholic "comedies of redemption" that would become the principal focus of his writing life.<ref name= Cunningham>{{cite journal|last= Cunningham|first= John|title= "A Handful of Dust" Reconsidered|jstor= 27546667|journal= The Sewanee Review (Johns Hopkins University)|volume= 101|issue= 1|date= Winter 1993|pages=115–24}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

In his introduction to the 1997 Penguin edition, Robert Murray Davis suggests that in part, the book reflected Waugh's reconsideration of his position as a Catholic writer, in the light of the recent Oldmeadow furore over ''Black Mischief''.<ref>Davis, pp. xi–xii</ref> He may have developed a more serious tone to pre-empt further criticism from that quarter, although Stannard maintains that Waugh's beginnings as a serious writer date back to 1929, when he was completing ''Vile Bodies''.<ref>Stannard 1984, pp. 4 and 382</ref>  Waugh's own comment, in 1946, was that he was not, according to his own understanding of the term, a "satirical" writer, and that in writing the book he was merely "trying to distil comedy and sometimes tragedy from the knockabout farce of people's outward behaviour".<ref name= FanFare/>

[[William Plomer]], writing in ''The Spectator'' after the book's first publication, thought it mistaken "to regard Mr Waugh's more surprising situations as farcical or far-fetched; they are on the whole extremely realistic".<ref name= Plomer/> However, the mixture of genres was not immediately understood or appreciated by some of Waugh's admirers; Connolly's initial thought was that Waugh had been "destroyed as a writer", by snobbery and association with country-house living.<ref>Fisher, p. 121</ref> In Sykes's view, the fleeting appearances in the book of characters from Waugh's farcical world, such as Lady Metroland, are awkward and intrusive—the world of ''A Handful of Dust'' is not outlandish: "Evelyn would have done better to have forgotten Lady Metroland and her world altogether".<ref name= Sykes140>Sykes, pp. 140–41</ref>

===Religion and humanism===
Cunningham sees ''A Handful of Dust'' as a forerunner of Waugh's later, avowedly Catholic novels.<ref name= Cunningham/> In keeping with Waugh's dismissive attitude to the [[Church of England]], Anglicanism is shown as a farce (Mr Tendril the vicar's sermons),<ref name= W104/> or a nullity (Tony's admission that he had never really thought much about God).<ref name= Cunningham/><ref>Waugh: ''A Handful of Dust'', p. 213</ref> Instead, Christianity is evoked by presenting the awfulness of life without it; according to the writer and critic [[Frank Kermode]], "[T]he callousness of incident and the coldness of tone work by suggesting the positive and rational declaration of the Faith".<ref name= kermode>{{cite journal|author-link= Frank Kermode|last= Kermode|first= Frank|title= Mr Waugh's Cities|journal = Encounter|date= November 1960|pages=63–70}}</ref> The reader, Stannard says, "is never allowed to forget man's primal bestiality&nbsp;... God is the key that has been thrown away in this purely secular world".<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 378–79</ref> John Raymond in the ''[[New Statesman]]'' refers to Waugh's "unique type of moral vision", and calls the novel a "powerful twentieth century sermon on the breakdown of a Christian marriage".<ref>Quoted in Stannard 1984, p. 384</ref>

Tony's doomed quest in the Brazilian jungle is framed in biblical terms; the relevant chapter title, "In Search of a City" alludes to [[Epistle to the Hebrews|Hebrews]] 13:14: "For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come".<ref name= Cunningham/> However, Waugh remarked of the novel that it was "humanist, and said all I wanted to say about humanism".<ref name= FanFare/> He believed that the essential 20th century conflict was between Christianity and Chaos, and chose to present a chaotic world to demonstrate that civilisation did not have in itself the power to survive.<ref>Waugh, quoted in Davis, p. xvii</ref> Thus, in the Brazilian jungle, Tony encounters what Davis terms "power without grace&nbsp;... secular feudalism unredeemed by the saving grace of Christianity".<ref>Davis, p. xxiv</ref> Todd is the symbol of humanist, irreligious power.<ref name= W104/>

===English Gothic===
[[File:Ettington Park - geograph.org.uk - 1230701.jpg|thumb|left| Ettington Park, in Warwickshire, a mid-nineteenth century remodelling of a much earlier house, as was the fictional Hetton<ref>{{NHLE|desc= Ettington Park Hotel |num= 1382586|access-date= 28 July 2016}}</ref>]]
The critic Bernard Bergonzi refers to Tony Last as "a doomed Gothic hero",<ref>Bernard Bergonzi, article in ''Blackfriars'' journal, July–August 1964, reproduced in Stannard 1984, pp. 159–60</ref> echoing Waugh's explanation to his friend [[Henry Green|Henry Yorke]] that the theme of the book was "a Gothic man in the hands of savages—first Mrs Beaver etc, then the real ones".<ref name= Amory88>Amory (ed.), p. 88</ref> According to Stannard, Waugh tended to judge a civilisation by its art, and especially by its architecture, and [[English Gothic architecture|English Gothic]] is a major leitmotif of the novel.<ref>Stannard 1993, pp. 310–11</ref> Tony's recognition of the extent of Brenda's betrayal is described as "a whole Gothic world&nbsp;... come to grief".<ref>Waugh: ''A Handful of Dust'', p. 153</ref><ref>Stannard 1993, p. 355</ref> Later, Tony finds purpose in his otherwise pointless voyage when he hears of the fabled lost city from Messinger; he visualises it as Gothic in character, "a transfigured Hetton&nbsp;... everything luminous and translucent; a coral citadel crowning a green hill top sown with daisies".<ref>Waugh: ''A Handful of Dust'', p. 164</ref> When at the end of his quest he first catches sight of Todd's settlement, in his delirium he sees, instead of the reality of mud huts and desolation, "gilded cupolas and spires of alabaster".<ref name= Cunningham/><ref>Waugh: ''A Handful of Dust'', p. 205</ref>

Although devoted to original English Gothic, Waugh had mixed views on [[Gothic Revival architecture]], preferring what he called "pre-Ruskin" to the "stodgy" later 19th-century style in which he places Hetton.<ref name= S380>Stannard 1993, pp. 380–81</ref> He instructed the artist responsible for the frontispiece in the first edition of the book to "design the worst possible 1860" style to depict the house.<ref name= Amory88/><ref name= S374>Stannard 1993, pp. 374–75</ref> The guidebook description of Hetton which opens the second chapter reveals that, "formerly one of the notable houses of the county, it was entirely rebuilt in 1864 in the Gothic style and is now devoid of interest".<ref>Waugh: ''A Handful of Dust'', p. 17</ref>  Thus, Tony's devotion is shown to be to a false ideal; his deposition and replacement in his domain by middle-class heirs represents what the writer [[Brigid Brophy]] terms "a bourgeois sack of a fake-Gothic Rome".<ref>Brigid Brophy, article in ''New Statesman'', 25 September 1964, reproduced in Stannard 1984, pp. 159–60</ref>

==Publication and reception==

===Publication history===
''A Handful of Dust'' first appeared in ''Harper's Bazaar'', as a serial in five instalments during the summer of 1934, using the alternative, non-Brazilian ending.<ref name= S374/> The complete novel was first published in book form in London, on 4 September 1934, by Chapman and Hall. It was an immediate success with the British public, and within four weeks had reached its fifth impression.<ref name="S374"/> In the same month it was issued in New York by [[Farrar & Rinehart]], who were initially unenthusiastic about the book and, according to Waugh's agent, made little promotional effort on its behalf.<ref>Hastings, p. 300</ref> It has since been published in the United States by (among others) [[Dell Publishing]] (1959);<ref>{{cite book|title=  A Handful of Dust & Decline and Fall|publisher= WorldCat|oclc= 1448952}}</ref> [[Little, Brown and Company|Little, Brown]] (1977);<ref>{{cite book|title=  A Handful of Dust|publisher= WorldCat|oclc= 3498978}}</ref> and [[Barnes & Noble|Barnes and Noble]] (2001).<ref>{{cite book|title=  A Handful of Dust|publisher= WorldCat|oclc= 48891193}}</ref>

Since its first publication the book has remained in print, and has been reproduced in many editions and foreign languages. It was first published as a paperback in 1951, by [[Penguin Books|Penguin]], who have reissued it regularly.<ref name= Worldcat/>  In 1945  Bernard Grasset published a translation in French,<ref>{{cite book|title=  Une poignée de cendre. Traduit par Marie Canavaggia.|publisher= WorldCat|oclc= 504723910}}</ref> after which the book was published in most European languages, and also in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.<ref name= Worldcat>{{cite web|title= Search results for 'Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust'|url= http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Evelyn+Waugh%3A+A+Handful+of+Dust&fq=&se=yr&sd=asc&dblist=638&start=11&qt=page_number_link#%2528x0%253Abook%2Bx4%253Adigital%2529format|publisher= WorldCat|access-date= 21 November 2014}}</ref>

===Critical reception===
The initial critical response to the book, while largely complimentary in tone, was nevertheless muted and sparse.<ref name= H313>Hastings, p. 313</ref>  This relative paucity of attention, Stannard surmises, might have been a consequence of the earlier serialisation, which meant that the essence of the story was well known before the book appeared.<ref name= S374/> ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'''s anonymous reviewer deemed the novel "a study of futility", whose hero is "so incapable of helping himself that he is not worth helping".<ref>Unsigned review, ''The Times Literary Supplement'' 6 September 1934, reproduced in Stannard 1984, pp. 149–50</ref> [[Peter Quennell]] in the ''New Statesman'' found the story both painful and amusing—"tragedy and comedy are interdependent"—but was not overcome by the bouts of hilarity that had interrupted his reading of earlier novels such as ''Decline and Fall''. If not exhilarating, the book was "certainly the most mature and best written novel that Mr Waugh has yet produced".<ref>Peter Quennell review, ''New Statesman'', 15 September 1934, reproduced in Stannard 1954, pp. 154–57</ref> Plomer's ''Spectator'' review described the book as "another of [Waugh's] cultivated pearls", economically written, holding the reader's attention throughout and capturing with precision the moods and rhythms of life as it was lived in certain quarters of society.<ref name= Plomer>William Plomer review, ''The Spectator'', 14 September 1934, reproduced in Stannard 1984, pp. 153–54</ref>

The only overtly hostile review was Oldmeadow's in ''The Tablet'', which asserted that, after the disquiet in Catholic circles following the publication of Waugh's previous novel, his co-religionists "reasonably hoped to find Mr Waugh turning over a completely new leaf. He has not done so".<ref>{{cite journal|last= Oldmeadow|first= Ernest|title= Editorial|journal= The Tablet|date= 8 September 1934|page= 300}}</ref> The review mixed literary criticism with moral sermonising, to which Waugh felt bound to object publicly. His friend, the journalist [[Tom Driberg]] agreed to place a notice in his [[William Hickey (columnist)|"William Hickey"]] column in the ''Daily Express'', in which Waugh accepted fully Oldmeadow's right to criticise the literary quality of the work "in any terms he thinks suitable". However, he added, so far as his moral lecturing was concerned, Oldmeadow was "in the position of a valet masquerading in his master's clothes. Long employment by a prince of the Church has tempted him to ape his superiors, and, naturally enough, he gives an uncouth and impudent performance".<ref>Waugh, letter and enclosure to Tom Driberg, September 1934, reproduced in Stannard 1984, p. 140</ref>

Many of Waugh's friends and admirers gave the book unstinting praise, among them [[Rebecca West]], [[Lady Diana Cooper]], [[Desmond MacCarthy]] and [[Hilaire Belloc]]. Among those less enthusiastic were the novelist [[J.B. Priestley]], who found the characters lightweight and uninvolving, and the devoutly Catholic Katharine Asquith who thought the writing was brilliant but the subject-matter deeply depressing.<ref name= H313/> The novel's critical standing grew steadily in the years following its publication. In 1942 the American critic [[Alexander Woollcott]] chose it as the best English novel in 100 years,<ref>Nigel Dennis, article in ''Partisan Review'', 28 July 1943, reproduced in Stannard 1984, p. 219</ref> a verdict largely endorsed some years later by Frank Kermode.<ref name= kermode/> Sykes wrote in 1975 that "there are only five or six novels of this century that can seriously challenge it".<ref name= Sykes140/>

In 2010 ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine placed ''A Handful of Dust'' in its listing of the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923 (the year the magazine began publication), stating: "If this is Waugh at his bleakest it’s also Waugh at his deepest, most poisonously funny".<ref>{{cite web|title= All-Time 100 novels|url= https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/#slide/a-handful-of-dust-1934-by-evelyn-waugh/?&_suid=14167576232200932029753844145|publisher= Time magazine|date= 27 January 2010|access-date= 23 November 2014}}</ref> In the [[Modern Library]]'s list of 100 best novels, ''A Handful of Dust'' is placed 34th in the "Board list", although unplaced in the complementary "Readers' List".<ref>{{cite web|title= 100 Best Novels|url= http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/|publisher= Modern Library|access-date= 23 November 2014}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
On 8 April 1968 [[BBC Radio 4]] broadcast ''A Handful of Dust'' as a radio play, in an adaptation by Denis Constanduros produced by Brian Miller. [[Jack Watling]] and [[Stephanie Beacham]] played Tony and Brenda Last, with Rex Holdsworth as Mr Todd.<ref>{{cite web|title= Listings: BBC Radio 4|url= http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/radio4/fm/1968-04-08|publisher= Genome (Radio Times 1923–2009)|access-date= 23 November 2014|archive-date= 29 November 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141129205416/http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/radio4/fm/1968-04-08|url-status= dead}}</ref> A new radio adaptation, with Jonathan Cullen and [[Tara Fitzgerald]] in the main roles, was broadcast as a two-part serial in May 1996.<ref>{{cite news|title= 26 May-1 June Radio|newspaper= The Observer|date= 26 May 1996|page=  F38|id= {{ProQuest|477811166}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> In November 1982 an ensemble cast performed the work as a stage play, directed by Mike Alfreds, at the [[Lyric Theatre (Hammersmith)|Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith]].<ref>{{cite news|last= Billington|first= Michael|title= Book at bedtime|newspaper= The Guardian|date= 11 November 1962| page=  12|id= {{ProQuest|186369954}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> A [[A Handful of Dust (film)|film version]], directed by [[Charles Sturridge]], was released in 1988, with [[James Wilby]] as Tony, [[Kristin Scott Thomas]] as Brenda, [[Judi Dench]] as Mrs Beaver and [[Alec Guinness]] as Mr Todd.<ref>{{cite web|title= A Handful of Dust (1987)|url= http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7962649e|publisher= British Film Institute|access-date= 29 November 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141204232707/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7962649e|archive-date= 4 December 2014|url-status= dead}}</ref>{{refn|On 3 October 1954 the American television series ''[[General Electric Theater]]'' screened an adaptation of "The Man Who Liked Dickens", entitled "High Green Wall". [[Joseph Cotten]] played the trapped explorer; [[Ronald Reagan]] was the series host.<ref>{{cite web|title= High Green Wall (1954)|url= http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7264fec3|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141204232143/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7264fec3|url-status= dead|archive-date= 4 December 2014|publisher= British Film Institute|access-date= 29 November 2014}}</ref> |group= n}}

==Notes and references==

=== Explanatory notes ===
{{Reflist | group=n}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist|25em}}

=== General and cited sources ===
* {{cite book|editor-last= Amory|editor-first= Mark |title= The Letters of Evelyn Waugh|publisher= Phoenix|location= London|year= 1995|isbn= 1-85799-245-8}} (Originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1980)
* {{cite book|editor-last= Davie|editor-first= Michael |title= The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh|publisher= Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location= London|year= 1976|isbn= 0-297-77126-4}}
* {{cite book|last= Davis|first= Robert Murray|title= ''"Introduction"'' to ''E. Waugh'': A Handful of Dust|publisher= Penguin Books|location= Harmondsworth, UK|year= 1997|isbn= 0-14-018886-X}}
* {{cite book|last= Fisher|first= Clive|title= Cyril Connolly|publisher= Papermac|location= London|year= 1995|isbn= 0-333-64965-6}}
* {{cite book|last= Hastings|first= Selina|title= Evelyn Waugh: A biography|publisher= Sinclair-Stevenson|location= London|year= 1994|isbn= 1-85619-223-7}}
* {{cite book|last= Lewis|first= Jeremy|title= Cyril Connolly: A Life|publisher= Pimlico|location= London|year= 1998|isbn= 0-7126-6635-4|url-access= registration|url= https://archive.org/details/cyrilconnollylif00lewi}}
* {{cite book|last= McDonnell|first= Jacqueline|title= Waugh on Women|publisher= Duckworth|location= London|year= 1985|isbn= 0-7156-2006-1}}
* {{cite book|editor-last= Slater|editor-first= Ann Pasternak |title= Evelyn Waugh: The Complete Short Stories (Introduction)|publisher= Everyman's|location= London|year= 1998|isbn=1-85715-190-9 }}
* {{cite book|last= Stannard|first= Martin|title= Evelyn Waugh, Volume I: The Early Years 1903–1939|publisher= Flamingo|location= London|year= 1993|isbn= 0-586-08678-1}}
* {{cite book|last= Stannard|first= Martin|title= Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage |publisher= Routledge|location= London|year= 1984|isbn= 0-415-15924-5}}
* {{cite book|author-link= Christopher Sykes (author)|last= Sykes|first= Christopher|title= Evelyn Waugh: A biography|publisher= Collins|year= 1975|location= London|isbn= 0-00-211202-7}}
* {{cite book|author-link= Evelyn Waugh|last= Waugh|first= Evelyn|title= Ninety-two Days|publisher= Duckworth|location= London|year= 1934|oclc= 504724214}}
* {{cite book|last= Waugh|first= Evelyn|title= A Handful of Dust|publisher= Penguin Books|location= Harmondsworth, UK|year= 1997|isbn= 0-14-018886-X}}
* {{cite book|last= Waugh|first= Evelyn|title= A Little Learning|publisher= Penguin Books|location= Harmondsworth, UK|year= 1983|isbn= 0-14-006604-7}}
* {{cite book|last= Wykes|first= David|title= Evelyn Waugh: A Literary Life|publisher= Macmillan|location= London|year= 1999|isbn= 0-333-61138-1|url-access= registration|url= https://archive.org/details/evelynwaughliter00wyke}}

==External links==
* {{FadedPage|id=20190606|name=A Handful of Dust}}

{{Evelyn Waugh}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Handful Of Dust, A}}
[[Category:1934 British novels]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Chapman & Hall books]]
[[Category:Novels by Evelyn Waugh]]
[[Category:Novels set in Brazil]]
[[Category:Works originally published in Harper's Bazaar]]