Book 1, Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Charles remembers his first visit to Brideshead over twenty years ago in 1923, when he was invited by his new friend, Sebastian Flyte, a fellow student attending a school near Oxford University, which Charles attended. Brideshead is the home of Sebastian's aristocratic family. Charles had noticed Sebastian in a group of other young men at school and had been struck by his affable manner and the fact he always carried a big teddy bear.

Charles formally meets Sebastian who seriously drunk one evening enters Charles' room unceremoniously and proceeds to be sick. Charles is too serious to engage in the drinking games of Sebastian and his friends preferring history and art studies. The day after Sebastian's indiscretion in Charles' room Charles returns from class to find his room filled with flowers and an invitation to lunch with Sebastian as a...