Decline and Fall

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 700+ words | Copyright

Decline and Fall, the first novel of E. Waugh, published with great success in 1928.

It recounts the chequered career of Paul Pennyfeather, sent down from Scone College, Oxford, for ‘indecent behaviour’, as the innocent victim of a drunken orgy. Thus forced to abandon a career in the church, he becomes a schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle, where he encounters headmaster Fagan and his daughters, the dubious, bigamous, and reappearing Captain Grimes, and young Beste-Chetwynde, whose glamorous mother Margot carries him off to the dangerous delight of high society. They are about to be married when Paul is arrested at the Ritz, and subsequently imprisoned for Margot's activities in the white slave trade; however, Margot (now Margot Metroland) arranges his escape, and he returns incognito, but under his own name, to resume his theological studies at Scone.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Decline and Fall." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Decline and Fall." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-DeclineandFall.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Decline and Fall." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-DeclineandFall.html

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