Vile Bodies

In the late 1920s, the gossip writer Adam Fenwick-Symes returns to England, loses his manuscript to customs, and tries to raise enough money to marry Nina Blount while their set of Bright Young People races from parties to races to a film set. Lord Monomark's papers, a drunken major who claims to have placed a winning bet, and Nina's father at Doubting Hall keep interrupting. Publicity, debt, and sudden religious conversion move through the same rooms. The novel is a satirical farce of Mayfair and Fleet Street that darkens as Europe slides toward war. It is not a documentary of any one real clique.

Quarter-bound in black cloth with Modigliani paper sides, cover printed with a colour design by Kate Baylay. Black slipcase.