Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939

Evelyn Waugh #1

by Martin Stannard

“A literary biography of the same caliber as Richad Ellmann’s James Joyce , James Lees-Milne’s Harold Nicolson , Hilary Spurling’s Ivy Compton-Burnett and Rupert Hart-Davis’ Hugh Walpole .” ―Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "The Evelyn Waugh who emerges from this fascinating and masterful account is a far different, and a far more complex, figure than the one most readers know. . . . Not only supersedes all earlier accounts of the writer but also is a model of the biographer’s art." ―Michael Gorra, New York Newsday

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, British Literature

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Martin Stannard is a professor of modern English literature at the University of Leicester, where he has taught since 1979.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh is not a cuddly man and I found myself at times left completely cold by Waugh’s lack of charity irascibleness irritability lack of empathy etc etc. But to be fair don’t read Waugh’s biography if you are looking for 21 century virtue signalling .

The biography is an excellent insight into his early life. To say Waugh was a sensitive and complicated creature is an understatement. His disgust at being sent to Lancing, his disgust at the cultural vacuum in the north Wales school where he taught , his complete drunkenness and debauchery in the period prior to teaching whilst all the time managing to create a black book filled with aristocratic and landed names which became his milieu . His ending up a writer whilst having no instinctive desire to write for a living - this is the background to his extraordinary rise as a prominent writer in the early 1930s.

Interesting but not lovable

[Berta Kleiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining read

[sch]

Nov 2018. Reading in advance of a book review.

At the end of May 2021, I'm abandoning the biography and the review. No time for scholarship in the life of a high school teacher.

[Dan Sotirios Kostopulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are simply too many biographies of Waugh, and I’m not sure why. He’s really not that interesting as person compared to many of his peers, but if you are determined to read one this is the one to get, along with its companion volume of his later years. Everything else is either hagiography or redundant of this volume.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biography worthy of its subject, which is saying something. The second volume is not quite as good, but more than worthwhile.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive bio. of the ultimate prose writer of his generation. Often critiqued for his aggresive promotion of Catholicism rather than recalled for his giftedly flighted prose.