Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction Satire, texts and contexts
1 England and the Octopus: Decline and Fall
2 Real Tears: Vile Bodies and The Apes of God
3 Collecting Material: Black Mischief, Scoop and Cold Comfort Farm
4 Blow the Whole Thing Sky-High: A Handful of Dust
5 Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Put Out More Flags and Scott-King’s Modern Europe
6 Half in Love With Easeful Death: The Loved One and Love Among the Ruins
7 Conscious Imposture: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
Coda The Rake’s Regress: “Basil Seal Rides Again”
Bibliography

About the Author

Naomi Milthorpe is lecturer in English at the School of Humanities, University of Tasmania.

Reviews

Milthorpe is careful to acknowledge that most significant Waugh scholarship to date has been grounded in biographical study before making a robust case for rooting her own enquiry more theoretically, specifically in the mechanics of satire.... [T]he strategy is highly successful, energetic, and engaging. Milthorpe offers some original and alternative readings that benefit the field considerably.... Milthorpe’s detailed exploration of Waugh’s personal writings and collections offers an excellent model of how such material can be deployed to enrich theory-led literary criticism rather than promoting the soft-historicist reduction of a work to no more than the sum of a writer plus his or her times.
*Modern Language Review*