to attribute to Pinfold his own traditional Roman Catholic beliefs. Pinfold is a convert, received into the Church in early manhood on the basis of a "calm acceptance of the propositions of his faith", rather than through than a dramatic or emotional event. While the Church was encouraging its adherents to engage with society and political institutions, Pinfold, like Waugh, "burrowed ever deeper into the rock, [holding himself] aloof from the multifarious organisations which have sprung into being at the summons of the hierarchy to redeem the times". Publication and reception Publication history In an undated postcard (probably late 1956) to John McDougall of Chapman & Hall, Waugh's publishers, Waugh asks that McDougall seek permission from Francis Bacon to use one of the artist's works as an image on the dust-jacket of the new novel. Jacobs considers this a "startling" request, given Waugh's known antipathy to modern art. Waugh probably had in mind one of Bacon's heads from the series generally referred to as the "screaming popes"—perhaps Head VI, which Waugh may have seen at Bacon's 1949 exhibition at the Hanover Gallery. No such arrangement with the painter was possible. Waugh was dissatisfied with the illustration that the publishers finally produced, and on 17 June 1957 wrote to Ann Fleming complaining that McDougall had made "an ugly book of poor Pinfold". The novel was published by Chapman and Hall in the UK on 19 July 1957, and by Little, Brown in the US on 12 August. The Daily Telegraph had partly revealed the book's principal theme three months earlier: "The publishers hope to establish 'Pinfold' as a household word meaning 'half round the bend'." This comment followed closely on the release of Muriel Spark's first novel, The Comforters, which also dealt with issues of drug-induced hallucination. Although it would have been in Waugh's commercial interests to have ignored or downplayed Spark's book, he reviewed it generously in The Spectator on 22 February 1957: "a complicated, subtle and, to me at least, an intensely interesting first novel". A special edition of 50 copies of Pinfold, on large paper, was prepared at Waugh's expense for presentation to his friends. The first Penguin paperback was issued in 1962, followed by numerous reissues in the following years, including a Penguin Modern Classic edition in 1999. It has also been translated into several languages. Critical reception On the day that Pinfold was published, Waugh was