Evelyn Waugh, 1934.

WAUGH, Evelyn (1903-1966). A Handful of Dust. London: Chapman & Hall, 1934.

A presentation copy of the first edition. Inscribed on the front endpaper by Waugh using his nickname: “Hubert with love from Bo.” Waugh would visit his good friend Hubert Duggan while he was on his deathbed and the experience of those final hours would inform Lord Marchmain's deathbed scene in Brideshead Revisited. Waugh wrote to Ronald Knox on 14 May 1845: "I am delighted that you became reconciled to B.R. in the end. It was, of course, all about the death bed. I was present at almost exactly that scene, with less extravagant decor, when a friend of mine whom we thought in his final coma and stubbornly impenitent, whose womenfolk would only let the priest in because they thought him unconscious, did exactly that, making the sign of the cross. It was profoundly affecting and I wrote the book about that scene." Duggan was the younger brother of historical novelist Alfred Duggan (with whom Waugh was at Oxford) and statesman Lord Curzon. Davis et al., 11.

Octavo. Publisher's red and black cloth (crease to spine, some rubbing overall, front hinge tender). Provenance: Hubert Duggan, 1904-1943 (authorial inscription).