they do everything and go everywhere together. The two principals of the first half, Charles and Sebastian, are in love, clearly. But what surprised me is that it all takes place within a thick pall of implied and overt homosexuality. That part is what I was expecting, and very lush and delectable and appalling it is too. It's famously set amongst the upper classes, firstly in Oxford, so you get pages of blissed-out descriptions of life amongst British aristocratic students in the 1920s and how many plovers eggs they eat and which claret they guzzle. Let us try.ġ) This book is the twisted story of a homosexual affair, which I was truly not expecting it to be. One's head is rather spinning, there are so many terribly good things and likewise so very much abject wretchedness it's hard to begin. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.Įvelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender' (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947.

After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.ĭuring the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930.

After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.

In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.” He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note.

Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher.

Brideshead revisited by evelyn waugh