Publisher's Synopsis
First published in 1936, and long out of print, this famous novel is now presented in a new edition with a new, informative introduction by Peter Quennell to whom the book is dedicated. This totally engaging satire chronicles the clash between two cultures - the snobbish, cliche-ridden English world that Naylor, the hero, represents, and an international group of artists and writers who inhabit a French Riviera town. Naylor, a smug young literary man from Oxford, at first studies the dissolute inhabitants as if they were aquatic organisms in a pool. But he is soon demoralized and swindled by them, and as winter approaches he remains, scarcely to be distinguished from them. Much has been written of the expatriate temper, but nowhere has it been treated with greater wit, spirit, and elegance of style than in this small, enduring classic.
