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The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh
The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh offers the first scholarly edition of Waugh's work, bringing together all of his extant writings and graphic art: novels, biographies, travel writing, short fiction, essays, articles, reportage, reviews, poems, juvenilia, parerga, drawings, and designs. No
other edition of a British novelist has been undertaken on this scale. Only 15% of Waugh's letters have previously been published. Alexander Waugh, Evelyn Waugh's grandson, is editing a twelve-volume Personal Writings sequence for the series, intercalating over 10,000 letters with the complete,
unexpurgated diaries. All volumes will be beautifully produced, and have comprehensive introductions and detailed annotation. Fiction and non-fiction volumes will also contain a full account of each text's manuscript development and textual variants.
The Complete Works will revolutionize Waugh studies, and offer new insights for twentieth-century literary and cultural studies generally. Waughs works are placed in their rich literary and historical context, enabling readers to appreciate for the first time the range and complexity of his thinking
and artistic practice, and linking this to the work of his contemporaries in Britain, America and Europe.
This volume is part of the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh critical edition, which brings together all Waugh's published and previously unpublished writings for the first time with comprehensive introductions and annotation, and a full account of each text's manuscript development and textual
variants. The edition's General Editor is Alexander Waugh, Evelyn Waugh's grandson and editor of the twelve-volume Personal Writings sequence.
This first volume of Evelyn Waugh's Articles, Essays, and Reviews contains every traceable piece of journalism that research could uncover written by Waugh between January 1922, when he first went up to Oxford, and December 1934, when he had recently returned from British Guiana and was enjoying the
runaway success of A Handful of Dust.
Long interred in fashion magazines, popular newspapers, sober journals, undergraduate reviews, and BBC archives, 110 of the 170 pieces in the volume have never before been reprinted. Several typescripts of articles and reviews are published here for the first time, as are a larger number of unsigned
pieces never before identified as Waugh's. Original texts, so easily distorted in the production process, have been established as far as possible using manuscript and other controls. The origins of the works are explored, and annotations to each piece seek to assist the modern reader.
The volume embraces university journalism; essays from Waugh's years of drift after Oxford; forcefully emphatic articles and contrasting sophisticated reviews written for the metropolitan press from 1928 to 1930 (the most active and enterprising years of Waugh's career); reports for three
newspapers of a coronation in Abyssinia and essays for The Times on the condition of Ethiopia and on British policy in Arabia. Finally, in early 1934 Waugh travelled for three months in remote British Guiana, resulting in nine travel articles and A Handful of Dust, acclaimed as one of the most
distinguished novels of the century. Waugh was 19 when his first Oxford review appeared, 31 when the Spectator printed his last review of 1934. This is a young writer's book, and the always lucid articles and reviews it presents read as fresh and lively, as challenging and opinionated, as the day
they first appeared.
other edition of a British novelist has been undertaken on this scale. Only 15% of Waugh's letters have previously been published. Alexander Waugh, Evelyn Waugh's grandson, is editing a twelve-volume Personal Writings sequence for the series, intercalating over 10,000 letters with the complete,
unexpurgated diaries. All volumes will be beautifully produced, and have comprehensive introductions and detailed annotation. Fiction and non-fiction volumes will also contain a full account of each text's manuscript development and textual variants.
The Complete Works will revolutionize Waugh studies, and offer new insights for twentieth-century literary and cultural studies generally. Waughs works are placed in their rich literary and historical context, enabling readers to appreciate for the first time the range and complexity of his thinking
and artistic practice, and linking this to the work of his contemporaries in Britain, America and Europe.
This volume is part of the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh critical edition, which brings together all Waugh's published and previously unpublished writings for the first time with comprehensive introductions and annotation, and a full account of each text's manuscript development and textual
variants. The edition's General Editor is Alexander Waugh, Evelyn Waugh's grandson and editor of the twelve-volume Personal Writings sequence.
This first volume of Evelyn Waugh's Articles, Essays, and Reviews contains every traceable piece of journalism that research could uncover written by Waugh between January 1922, when he first went up to Oxford, and December 1934, when he had recently returned from British Guiana and was enjoying the
runaway success of A Handful of Dust.
Long interred in fashion magazines, popular newspapers, sober journals, undergraduate reviews, and BBC archives, 110 of the 170 pieces in the volume have never before been reprinted. Several typescripts of articles and reviews are published here for the first time, as are a larger number of unsigned
pieces never before identified as Waugh's. Original texts, so easily distorted in the production process, have been established as far as possible using manuscript and other controls. The origins of the works are explored, and annotations to each piece seek to assist the modern reader.
The volume embraces university journalism; essays from Waugh's years of drift after Oxford; forcefully emphatic articles and contrasting sophisticated reviews written for the metropolitan press from 1928 to 1930 (the most active and enterprising years of Waugh's career); reports for three
newspapers of a coronation in Abyssinia and essays for The Times on the condition of Ethiopia and on British policy in Arabia. Finally, in early 1934 Waugh travelled for three months in remote British Guiana, resulting in nine travel articles and A Handful of Dust, acclaimed as one of the most
distinguished novels of the century. Waugh was 19 when his first Oxford review appeared, 31 when the Spectator printed his last review of 1934. This is a young writer's book, and the always lucid articles and reviews it presents read as fresh and lively, as challenging and opinionated, as the day
they first appeared.
662 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1983
1 person is currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Evelyn Waugh
347 books2,954 followersEvelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. 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. 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. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”
In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. 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 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.
During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. 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. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.
Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...
In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. 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 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.
During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. 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. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.
Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 26, 2022
Not every page is as stimulating as the next but there's plenty for the Waugh appreciator to relish.
December 11, 2014
It's taken me years, but I'm stopping now, having read almost all of the essays, which are often excellent. The presentation by Donat Gallagher is superb.
August 25, 2013
I don't share his religious beliefs, or his political convictions, but the writing - Delicious!
August 24, 2024
Evelyn Waugh was a product of his time, anachronistic and quaint by today’s standards, and a signpost to how far we have travelled in our social, political, and literary evolution.
Born into a family of letters in 1903 – a publisher father and a novelist elder brother – Waugh published his first novel at 25 and was given over to the literary profession from the age of 14 until his death at 63, as a journalist, book reviewer, essayist, and novelist. This book contains a wide selection of his essays, reviews, and other articles from that period.
A Catholic convert from Anglicanism, he was critical of his former church, of his alma mater Oxford and of his chosen profession, Literature. A royalist and a conservative, he believed in the class system, in dressing up for the evening, and he lamented the post-WWII drift towards liberalism, and of literature’s conversion from an aristocracy to a democracy with its erosion in decency; he brimmed at morality that was not based on religion (he had problems with George Orwell’s atheistic morality, and Graham Greene’s anti-heroes). This old-world thinking led to him taking on the Angry Young Men of his generation (a la Amis, Osborne, and Braine) and losing popularity with his audiences. However, I agree with one of his assertions: that the life of the artist and his work should be appreciated separately – “Dickens was a thumping cad,” says Waugh.
His prescription for kick-starting a literary career: “Write a biography of a famous person, then follow up with a risqué novel.” The requirements for good journalism were “good conversations, contacts and associations.” His elements of literary style were: Lucidity, Elegance, and Individuality; on the last item, he lamented the state taking over private schools and flattening society. He saw the continuity of family professions: “A man is best suited to the tasks he has seen his father perform” – and in his case, he followed that rule. He was a bit off in his predictions: he foresaw another world war by 1970 and an American or Russian sitting in a space capsule on the moon and being bored – this last prediction came true 10 years later, but I doubt the astronauts were bored – they became celebrities.
His anachronistic traits were evident in his condemnation of the car, television, and the telephone. The last invention, he called pernicious, “You could call to cancel arrangements at the last minute.” He considered Americans better mannered than the British – the former used manners for cordiality while the latter used them for privacy. However, “in Britain, the crooks are the poor, while in America, the crooks are the wealthy.”
He had special condemnation for “sloth.” Sloth, in his view, is the refusal of joy and is allied to despair. Sloth in literature is when writers churn out manuscripts with excessive writing and expect editors to cut out the chaff. Or when writers write with a view on subsidiary rights for their work (i.e. films and television), or when writers only produce notes and expect publishers to blow them up into full-length books.
I couldn’t help but wonder at Waugh condemning the standards of literary production and sale towards the end of his life, in 1962, when writing was still considered a profession that one could earn a living at. How much more would he have griped if he were working today in our age of social media and AI?
Born into a family of letters in 1903 – a publisher father and a novelist elder brother – Waugh published his first novel at 25 and was given over to the literary profession from the age of 14 until his death at 63, as a journalist, book reviewer, essayist, and novelist. This book contains a wide selection of his essays, reviews, and other articles from that period.
A Catholic convert from Anglicanism, he was critical of his former church, of his alma mater Oxford and of his chosen profession, Literature. A royalist and a conservative, he believed in the class system, in dressing up for the evening, and he lamented the post-WWII drift towards liberalism, and of literature’s conversion from an aristocracy to a democracy with its erosion in decency; he brimmed at morality that was not based on religion (he had problems with George Orwell’s atheistic morality, and Graham Greene’s anti-heroes). This old-world thinking led to him taking on the Angry Young Men of his generation (a la Amis, Osborne, and Braine) and losing popularity with his audiences. However, I agree with one of his assertions: that the life of the artist and his work should be appreciated separately – “Dickens was a thumping cad,” says Waugh.
His prescription for kick-starting a literary career: “Write a biography of a famous person, then follow up with a risqué novel.” The requirements for good journalism were “good conversations, contacts and associations.” His elements of literary style were: Lucidity, Elegance, and Individuality; on the last item, he lamented the state taking over private schools and flattening society. He saw the continuity of family professions: “A man is best suited to the tasks he has seen his father perform” – and in his case, he followed that rule. He was a bit off in his predictions: he foresaw another world war by 1970 and an American or Russian sitting in a space capsule on the moon and being bored – this last prediction came true 10 years later, but I doubt the astronauts were bored – they became celebrities.
His anachronistic traits were evident in his condemnation of the car, television, and the telephone. The last invention, he called pernicious, “You could call to cancel arrangements at the last minute.” He considered Americans better mannered than the British – the former used manners for cordiality while the latter used them for privacy. However, “in Britain, the crooks are the poor, while in America, the crooks are the wealthy.”
He had special condemnation for “sloth.” Sloth, in his view, is the refusal of joy and is allied to despair. Sloth in literature is when writers churn out manuscripts with excessive writing and expect editors to cut out the chaff. Or when writers write with a view on subsidiary rights for their work (i.e. films and television), or when writers only produce notes and expect publishers to blow them up into full-length books.
I couldn’t help but wonder at Waugh condemning the standards of literary production and sale towards the end of his life, in 1962, when writing was still considered a profession that one could earn a living at. How much more would he have griped if he were working today in our age of social media and AI?
October 14, 2024
Waugh wrote a lot of non-fiction articles and reviews over the 36 years prior to death, so this is a very thick book. I agree with most of what Waugh wrote, but bottom line - this stuff is too dated to be of any interest.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews