In this unique collection of short stories composed between 1910-62, Evelyn Waugh''s early juvenilia are brought together with later pieces, some of which became the inspirations for his novels. ''Mr Loveday''s Little Outing'' is a blackly comic tale of a mental asylum and its favourite resident; ''Cruise'' sees a hilarious series of letters from a naïve young woman as she travels with her family; ''A House of Gentlefolks'' observes a group of elderly eccentric aristocrats and their young heir; and in ''The Sympathetic Passenger'' a radio-loathing retiree picks up exactly the wrong hitchhiker. These witty and immaculately crafted stories display the finest writing of a master of satire and comic twists.