Black Mischief.

WAUGH, Evelyn.

$1,650.00

Item Number: 95269

London: Chapman & Hall, 1962.

First revised edition of Waugh’s third novel. Octavo, original cloth, with 9 line-drawings by the author. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Patrick with regards from Evelyn.” The recipient, Scottish author-journalist Patrick Balfour, was a life-long friend of Waugh’s. Balfour was serving as a correspondent for The Evening Standard and Daily Sketch in East Africa and became a close companion of Waugh’s as he wrote the present volume. Near fine in a very good dust jacket.

Written after Waugh spent a winter in East and Central Africa, Black Mischief chronicles the efforts of the English-educated Emperor Seth to modernize his Empire on the fictional African island of Azania. Upon publication, Ernest Oldmeadow, the editor of the Catholic Journal The Tablet, launched an attack on the book, stating that it was "a disgrace to anybody professing the Catholic name" to which Waugh made no public rebuttal.