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New to Penguin Modern Classics Correspondence from over 22 years between two of the twentieth century´s most amusing and gifted writers.

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Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh were two of the twentieth century´s most amusing and gifted writers, who matched wits and traded literary advice in more than five hundred letters over twenty-two years. Dissecting their friends, criticizing each other´s books and concealing their true feelings beneath a barrage of hilarious and knowing repartee, they found it far easier to conduct a friendship on paper than in person. This correspondence provides a colourful glimpse into the literary and social circles of London and Paris, during the Second World War and for twenty years after.

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Waugh, Evelyn
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, 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.

Mitford, Nancy
Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. She had written four novels, including Wigs on the Green (1935), before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945, which she followed with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Don´t Tell Alfred (1960). She also wrote four works of biography. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.

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