Labels.: A Mediterranean Journal.

[London]: Duckworth,, 1930. A fine copy, inscribed to the publisher who missed out on Decline and Fall First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "Tom from Evelyn, his worst book". The recipient was Thomas Balston, the partner at Duckworth who had seen Waugh's early potential, given him a £50 advance on his biography of Rossetti, and been away from the office when Waugh came in to offer his first novel, Decline and Fall. Waugh's brother later recalled that because of Balston's sharp eye, "Duckworth got not only the book on Rossetti, but all of Evelyn's subsequent travel books. They would have got his novels too, had not Duckworth in Balston's absence been scared of the audacities of Decline and Fall", which was instead published by Chapman and Hall in 1928. There were also suggestions that Gerald Duckworth refused the book because of his friendship with Lady Burghclere, the disapproving mother of Waugh's new wife. Waugh later presented a copy of Decline and Fall to Balston inscribed "To Tom Balston - the stone that the Builder rejected". Labels came about because Waugh was under contract to write a travel book for Duckworth about his belated honeymoon cruise with Lady Burghclere's daughter, also named Evelyn. The holiday was not a success. His wife had been ill before they set off, and travelling the Mediterranean worsened her condition. Waugh wrote to Harold Acton from Port Said, where Evelyn was bedridden with pneumonia: "At last she is out of danger. Meanwhile of course our trip is broken, we shall be here for a month, & all my work at a standstill. I hope now things are easier to start on a new novel. In spite of all reports this is an intolerably dull town". They returned to Britain, where Waugh duly submitted his book and, after the sudden collapse of their marriage in July 1930, filed for divorce in September 1930, the month of publication. Labels is written as if he had been alone on the cruise, and was re-titled A Bachelor Abroad in the American edition. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Book Society sticker on front panel. Spine sunned, ends gently bumped, a near-fine copy in like jacket, toned spine, three short closed tears at top edge, one corner just chipped, a few creases, very fresh. Alec Waugh, "My Brother Evelyn", The Atlantic, June 1967.