The couple became leaders of the London artistic and social scene and were dedicatees of Evelyn Waugh's second novel Vile Bodies.
Thus, in Decline and Fall (1928) "Toby Cruttwell" is a psychopathic burglar; in Vile Bodies (1930) the name belongs to a snobbish Conservative MP.
The names "Imogen Quest" and "Adam" were used by Waugh several years later in his novel Vile Bodies, leading to speculation as to whether these names, like that of the house, originated in The Temple at Thatch.
Vile Bodies | William Vile | Kurt Vile | Vile Parle | Ain't Them Bodies Saints | The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons | So Vile a Sin | None So Vile | Embarrassing Bodies | Bring Up the Bodies | Bodies in Motion | Association of Accountancy Bodies in West Africa | Woronin bodies (arrows) immobilized on the cortex of ''Sordaria fimicola | Weymann Fabric Bodies | ''The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons'' by Jacques-Louis David | Student Bodies (TV series) | Student Bodies | Dementia with Lewy bodies | dementia with Lewy bodies | Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums | Bodies of Water | Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies |
Waugh later lampooned his employer by portraying him as Lord Copper in Scoop and as Lord Monomark in both Put Out More Flags and Vile Bodies.
The novel is set during the first year of the Second World War, and follows the wartime activities of characters introduced in Waugh's earlier satirical novels Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies and Black Mischief.
Since Autumn 2005, a series of articles have appeared under the heading 'UCL plc', written under the pseudonym 'Mr Chatterbox' (a reference to Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies).