A Handful of Dust is a novel by Evelyn Waugh published in 1934. The title is an allusion to T. S. Eliot's 1922 poem The Waste Land: I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. The novel was originally called A Handful of Ashes, but, after a dispute with his American publishers, the quotation from The Waste Land was chosen. Christopher Sykes, Waugh's biographer, notes, "the title was not apposite." Plot summary The novel is set in the 1930s, and focuses on the breakdown of the marriage of Tony and Lady Brenda Last. Tony is preoccupied with the maintenance of Hetton Abbey, a masterpiece of unfashionable Victorian Gothic architecture. "Between the villages of Hetton and Compton Last lies the extensive park