Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Lucy Irvine

'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.' 
 
The opportunity to escape from it all was irresistible. Lucy Irvine answered the advertisement - and found herself alone on a remote desert island with a 'husband' she hardly knew. 
 
Lucy Irvine fell in love with the seductive, if cruel, beauty of that untouched Eden, whose power to enslave and enchant her never slackened throughout the whole of her amazing adventure. 
 
Uncompromisingly candid and sometimes shocking, Castaway is her compulsively readable account of a desert island dream which threatened to turn into a nightmare of illness, thirst and personal antipathy.

Castaway

Tim Bauerschmidt

Ramie Liddle

'A life-affirming book' Daily Mail 
 
'An uplifting personal story of a year lived like no other' Daily Express 
 
Two days after her husband of sixty-seven years dies, nonagenarian Miss Norma is diagnosed with cancer. When given her treatment options - surgery, chemo and radiotherapy - she rises to her full five feet and says in the strongest voice she can muster: 'I’m ninety years old. I’m hitting the road!' 
 
 Driving Miss Norma is the story of her inspirational road trip across the US in a thirty-six-foot motorhome with her son, Tim, his wife, Ramie and their Poodle, Ringo - showing us that it's never too late to begin an adventure, inspire hope or become a trailblazer. As the journey unfolds, Miss Norma finally spreads her wings and lives life on her own terms for the very first time. With each adventure a once timid Miss Norma says YES to living in the face of death - whether it's experiencing her very first pedicure or taking the hot air balloon ride her late husband never found time for. 
 
 With each passing mile - and one hilarious visit to a cannabis dispensary - Miss Norma’s health improves and conversations that had once been taboo begin to unfold. Norma, Tim and Ramie bond in ways they could never have anticipated and their definitions of home, family and friendship are rewritten as strangers become friends and shower them with kindness. 
 
Bursting with Miss Norma’s generous spirit, Driving Miss Norma ignites a renewed sense of life, family, fun and self-discovery - at any age.

Driving Miss Norma

William Black

In Al Dente, William Black travels the length and breadth of Italy in order to get to the roots of Italian food. Our intrepid gastronome eats whatever gets in his way which often isn't quite what it seems. If it's cheese then it may be considered ripe only when it has been predigested by maggots or perhaps made solely from the milk of tired cows. A bowl of pasta might come with donkey sauce. A dish of wind dried tuna apparently includes its testicles. A lovely risotto has been made with seagull broth... 
 
William's dedication to his task knows alarmingly few bounds. His quest for the most delicious and authentic cooking and the very finest ingredients takes him to some wonderfully familiar places as well as others far off the beaten track: he drinks great coffee in Turin, chases rabbits in Ischia and views the mattanza, the annual tuna catch, off the coast of Sardinia. One minute he's scoffing eel brodetto, the next waxing lyrical about the joys of frog risotto. And as he eats his way to the country's culinary heart, he unearths the fascinating story of his own family's role in Italian history. 
 
A joy from cover to cover and 100 per cent mierda di bufala-free, Al Dente is a must for anyone with an interest in Italy or its food. It will probably make you want to book a holiday and it will certainly make you laugh.

Al Dente

Sarah Pearse

'The Sanatorium will keep you checking over your shoulder. This spine-tingling, atmospheric thriller has it all: an eerie Alpine setting, sharp prose, and twists you'll never see coming. A must-read.' Richard Osman 
 
'An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my seat.' Reese Witherspoon 
 
YOU WON'T WANT TO LEAVE... UNTIL YOU CAN'T. 
 
*WATERSTONES THRILLER OF THE MONTH* 
*ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD* 
*THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* 
*A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOKCLUB PICK* 
*CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2022 FINGERPRINT AWARDS* 
*COLD AS ICE AWARD WINNER AT 2022 DEAD GOOD READERS AWARDS* 
 
A beautiful, eerie hotel in the Swiss Alps, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, is the last place Detective Elin Warner wants to be. But her estranged brother has invited her there for his engagement party, and she feels she has no choice but to accept. 
 
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. And things only get worse when they wake the next morning to find her brother's fiancée is missing. With access to the hotel cut off, the guests begin to panic. 
 
But this is only the first disappearance. Everyone's in danger - and anyone could be next . . . 
____________________ 
 
'The Sanatorium is an absolutely splendid Gothic thriller.' A. J. Finn 
'One of the best books of 2021 [...] guaranteed to give you goosebumps.' Woman & Home 
'I absolutely loved The Sanatorium - it gave me all the wintry thrills and chills.' Lucy Foley 
'A menacing, creepy debut [...] echoes of Hitchcock and du Maurier.' Daily Mail 
'A chillingly vivid thriller in a fantastic setting.' T. M. Logan 
 
Readers love The Sanatorium: 
 
***** 'Thrilling, chilling - a tingles down my spine type of read.' 
***** 'Imagine a universe where Agatha Christie and Stephen King collaborated on a book.' 
***** 'Sarah Pearse wastes no time in ramping up the tension and is clearly destined to be a master of this genre.' 
 
Don't miss The Retreat, the addictive new thriller from the global bestselling author of The Sanatorium.

The Sanatorium

The spine-tingling #1 Sunday Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

Andrew Eames

Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 - a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and led to her other life as the wife of an archaeologist in the deserts of Syria and Iraq. Travelling from London to Baghdad by train on the eve of the Iraq war, through the troubled areas of the Balkans and the Middle East, Eames found stark contrasts to the old Orient Express route as well as some unexpected connections with the past.

The 8.55 To Baghdad

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

Penguin Shop: 15% off for a limited time with code PENGUINXMAS2025

Little Black Classics Box Set

White Nights

Frankenstein

Extracts

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Features

Beyond Brideshead: why Evelyn Waugh needs to be reclaimed as our funniest writer

Brideshead Revisited at 75: How the covers have changed through the decades

A flatlay of some of Nancy Mitford's most notable works. 

Reading lists

Where to start with Nancy Mitford

Beautiful classics for the shelf-conscious bookworm

11 beautiful classics for the shelf-conscious bookworm

Interviews

Meet the author: Martin Latham, the country's leading bookseller

Eight favourite aristocratic classics

Funny books guaranteed to make you laugh out loud

Reading rituals: what's your strangest book habit?

Despite the war, the 1940s was a bumper decade for publishing

Books that shaped the 1940s

Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

An illustration of a book against a background

20 novels that shaped the Victorian era

A collage of book covers on a light blue background. Titles include I Capture the Castle, Beloved, The Secret History and The Wind in the Willows.

100 must-read classics, as chosen by our readers

The best literary podcasts for book lovers

39 of the best literary and book podcasts for book lovers

20 books that defined the 1930s

From Jane Austen's Chawton to Bram Stoker's Whitby, this is the definitive literary tour of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

A literary tour of the United Kingdom

Photo of authors James Holland and Al Murray in the Penguin Podcast studio

The Penguin Podcast: episode 10 - history special

stemming

Showing results for: ‘Evelyn Waugh’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter