Work Suspended. Two chapters of an unfinished novel (signed presentation copy)

London: Chapman & Hall, 1942.

First Edition limited to 500 copies (as stated), this copy inscribed to the flyleaf by Waugh to his friend and fellow author Osbert Sitwell, "Osbert from Evelyn Christmas 1942". Original red cloth with title lettered in gilt to the spine. Without the very rare dust-jacket. Very slight lean to text block. In "Renishaw Revealed" on the Evelyn Waugh website one finds the following: "Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire is owned by the Sitwell family. Evelyn Waugh knew Osbert Sitwell from 1928, when Evelyn gave his influential new friend a signed copy of his sparkling debut novel, 'Decline and Fall'. In 1942, when the relationship was long-established, Osbert asked Evelyn if he could come up with a personal reminiscence of his father, Sir George Sitwell. Evelyn obliged by handing him a carefully crafted letter / The letter is dated 20 June 1942 and was written at Renishaw Hall (which is close to where Waugh's Commando unit was based at the time). The letter appears as an appendix to 'Laughter in the Next Room' the fourth volume of Osbert Sitwell's autobiography. It describes the only occasion that Evelyn met George Sitwell, in the summer of 1928". Also loosely inserted is single page autograph letter in manuscript from The Wallace Collection, dated 4th November 1947 on official letterhead notepaper, "With very many thanks for loan of this. Mama enjoyed it consummately. See you Thursday & all possible congratulations on the book". Signed 'R' who I have not been able to identify, nor is it clear who the letter if to. However, I am in no doubt the dedicatee of the book, the "Osbert" in this case, is his old friend Sitwell. The two chapters were "A Death" and "A Birth"; the former had previously been published as "My Father's House" (Horizon, Vol. IV, No. 23, November 1941). First edition of Waugh's unfinished work, begun in July 1939 and abandoned due to the break out of the Second World War.