Evelyn Waugh, 1948

WAUGH, Evelyn (1903-1966). The Loved One, an Anglo-American Tragedy. London, Chapman & Hall, 1948.

Presentation copy and one of 250 larged paper copies. Inscribed: "For Andrea, neighbor of Joyboy, with love from Evelyn Dec 1948." Waugh’s satirical short novel was inspired by his visit to Los Angeles. The trip had been paid for by MGM Studios in hope of gaining the movie adaptation rights to Brideshead Revisited. Waugh found the visit to be worth his time in writing material: “I found a deep mine of literary gold in the cemetery of Forest Lawn at the work of the morticians and intend to get to work immediately on a novelette staged there” (Davie, ed., The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, 1976). Andrea was most likely Andrea Cowdin, the wife of John Cheever Cowdin, the head of Universal Pictures. "Joyboy" is a reference to a character in The Loved One, Mr. Joyboy, the senior mortician at Whispering Glades. This copy is number five. Davis et al., 13.

Octavo. Publisher's green cloth (spine slightly faded, a little spotting, tips bumped). Provenance: Andrea Cowdin (authorial inscription).