Toasting Immortal Memory Dickens Birthday Dinner (1977), Barbara Hardy spoke for many Dickensians and some moderns when she referred to Waugh's use of Dickens in A Handful of Dust as the strangest invocation of Dickens in modern literature. Tony Last's deplorable fate-having to read works of Dickens over and over to madman in Brazilian jungle-cannot be a joke against Hardy decided, for complete set of few novelists would turn up . .. in mud hut on Amazon. 1 In 1934, however, seven years before Edmund Wilson's restorative essay, Dickens was not household word he once had been or has again become. Dickensians will quickly discern that Waugh caricatures Dickens outrageously and, in places, unfairly. But joke, hilarious and effective, is definitely against Dickens. Waugh's reaction, like Aldous Huxley's, indicates that response of modern satirical novelists to Dickens has been mixed. At times an imitator of Dickens, Waugh puts works of Boz in Mr. Todd's hut for very satirical reason: he considers Inimitable largely responsible for breakdown of social restraints. This collapse, consequence of secularization of life, has resulted in prevalence of savagery in modern wasteland. To explicate joke against Dickens from Waugh's perspective, one must discover why Mr. Todd reads Dickens instead of Conrad. Begun at end, A Handful of Dust originates from Man Who Liked short story about man trapped in jungle, ending his days reading Dickens aloud. Inspiration for story came during Waugh's visit with a lonely in Boa Vista, who could easily have taken him prisoner that stage of his trek through Brazil. After publishing, Waugh wanted to discover how prisoner got there. So he re-used tale as Chapter Six in novel that contrapuntally compares civilized man's plight among primitives of Brazil with prior disservices done to him by other sorts of savages home. 2 Absurd events Chez Todd are based on an autobiographical incident in which Dickens originally played no part. The isolated settler was half-mad religious enthusiast, aptly named Mr. Christie, not Dickens fanatic. As Waugh's