In her elegant and sometimes vicious style, Evelyn Waugh sharply critiques British society over a period of three decades. From "Work Suspended," in which Plant, a detective writer, postpones his unfinished novel until after the war, to "Basil Seal Rides Again," where the hero of "Black Mischief" dominates the youth culture of the 1960s, these stories capture much of the social environment of the twentieth century. This collection also includes the excerpt "Charles Ryder's Schooldays," which offers a glimpse into the background of the narrator of "Brideshead Revisited."