# What is the best Evelyn Waugh novel of all time?

> From savage social satires that skewer high society to the wistful elegy of a doomed aristocratic family, this lineup spans a career of sharp wit and quiet heartbreak. Which one earns your vote?

*By YPB Team · Published August 12, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-evelyn-waugh-novel-of-all-time*

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## Current results (3 votes)

1. **Brideshead Revisited** — 66.67% (2 votes · score 1000/1000)
   Waugh's 1945 masterwork about nostalgia, faith, and an aristocratic Catholic family seen through a young Oxford friend's eyes.
2. **Vile Bodies** — 33.33% (1 votes · score 813/1000)
   A 1930 satire of London's frivolous Bright Young Things skewering high society between the wars.
3. **Black Mischief** — 0% (0 votes · score 724/1000)
   A 1932 satirical novel about modernization schemes gone awry on the fictional African island of Azania.
4. **Scoop** — 0% (0 votes · score 665/1000)
   A 1938 satire of sensationalist journalism following a nature columnist mistakenly sent to cover an African war.
5. **Scott-King's Modern Europe** — 0% (0 votes · score 517/1000)
   A 1947 novella satirizing a classics schoolmaster's surreal trip to a fictional Eastern European police state.
6. **Love Among the Ruins** — 0% (0 votes · score 517/1000)
   A 1953 dystopian novella satirizing the welfare state and euthanasia in a bleak future Britain.
7. **Put Out More Flags** — 0% (0 votes · score 517/1000)
   A 1942 wartime satire tracking a group of English friends and rogues at the outbreak of World War II.
8. **Helena** — 0% (0 votes · score 423/1000)
   A 1950 historical novel imagining the life of Saint Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, and her quest for the True Cross.
9. **The Loved One** — 0% (0 votes · score 423/1000)
   A 1948 dark satire of the American funeral industry and Hollywood expatriate life in Los Angeles.
10. **Decline and Fall** — 0% (0 votes · score 310/1000)
   Waugh's 1928 debut satire following the misadventures of an Oxford student expelled into a chaotic career in teaching and crime.
11. **Men at Arms** — 0% (0 votes · score 310/1000)
   The 1952 opening volume of the Sword of Honour trilogy, following Guy Crouchback's bumbling entry into wartime military service.
12. **Officers and Gentlemen** — 0% (0 votes · score 310/1000)
   The 1955 second volume of the Sword of Honour trilogy, centered on the chaotic Battle of Crete.
13. **The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold** — 0% (0 votes · score 310/1000)
   A 1957 semi-autobiographical novel about a writer's paranoid hallucinatory breakdown at sea.
14. **A Handful of Dust** — 0% (0 votes · score 172/1000)
   A 1934 tragicomic novel about the collapse of an English country marriage and its devastating aftermath.
15. **Unconditional Surrender** — 0% (0 votes · score 172/1000)
   The 1961 concluding volume of the Sword of Honour trilogy, following Guy Crouchback through the war's disillusioning final years.

Tags: books, classics, satire, british, evelyn waugh