# A Handful of Dust

**Author:** Evelyn Waugh
**Grade range:** Grades 11–12
**Age range:** 16–17
**First published:** 1934
**Page count:** 265
**Genre:** Humor
**ISBN-13:** `9780375414206`
**ISBN-10:** `0375414207`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/a-handful-of-dust
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Tony Last is an aristocrat whose attachment to an ideal feudal past is so profound that he is blind to his wife Brenda's boredom with the stately rhythms of country life. She sets herself up in a London flat and pursues an affair with the social-climbing idler John Beaver. Tragedy forces the collapse of their relationship to accelerate, and Tony seeks solace in a foolhardy search for El Dorado.

## Themes

- adultery
- divorce
- brazil, fiction
- england, fiction

## Where this book is assigned

### Cambridge AS & A-Level English Literature (9695)

- **required** · 11th grade — [source: Prescribed set text for Cambridge International AS & A Level Literature in English (9695), Paper 2 Section A (Prose), for examination in 2027. Transcribed from the official Cambridge International syllabus (721410-2027-2028-syllabus.pdf). Set texts rotate ](https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-international-as-and-a-level-literature-in-english-9695/)
- **required** · 12th grade — [source: Prescribed set text for Cambridge International AS & A Level Literature in English (9695), Paper 2 Section A (Prose), for examination in 2027. Transcribed from the official Cambridge International syllabus (721410-2027-2028-syllabus.pdf). Set texts rotate ](https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-international-as-and-a-level-literature-in-english-9695/)

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