Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (1903-10-28)28 October 1903 West Hampstead, London, England
Died
10 April 1966(1966-04-10) (aged 62) Combe Florey, Somerset, England
Occupation
Writer
Education
Lancing College Hertford College, Oxford
Period
1923–1964
Genre
Novel, biography, short story, travelogue, autobiography, satire, humour
Spouses
Evelyn Gardner
(m. 1928; ann. 1936)
Laura Herbert
(m. 1937)
Children
7, including Auberon Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (/ˈiːvlɪnˈsɪndʒənˈwɔː/; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945), and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour (1952–1961). He is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century.[1]
Waugh was the son of a publisher, educated at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford. He worked briefly as a schoolmaster before he became a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends and developed a taste for country house society.
He travelled extensively in the 1930s, often as a special newspaper correspondent; he reported from Abyssinia at the time of the 1935 Italian invasion. Waugh served in the British armed forces throughout the Second World War, first in the Royal Marines and then in the Royal Horse Guards. He was a perceptive writer who used the experiences and the wide range of people whom he encountered in his works of fiction, generally to humorous effect. Waugh's detachment was such that he fictionalised his own mental breakdown which occurred in the early 1950s.[2]
Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930 after his first marriage failed. His traditionalist stance led him to strongly oppose all attempts to reform the Church, and the changes by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) greatly disturbed his sensibilities, especially the introduction of the vernacular Mass. That blow to his religious traditionalism, his dislike for the welfare state culture of the postwar world, and the decline of his health all darkened his final years, but he continued to write. He displayed to the world a mask of indifference, but he was capable of great kindness to those whom he considered his friends. After his death in 1966, he acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited (1981).
^DeCoste, Mr D. Marcel (2015). The Vocation of Evelyn Waugh: Faith and Art in the Post-War Fiction. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-7084-7.
^"Waugh's Head Revisited: A writer who deserves to be remembered". America Magazine. 27 March 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (/ˈiːvlɪn ˈsɪndʒən ˈwɔː/; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books;...
Baron Burghclere, and the first wife of EvelynWaugh. She was one of the Bright Young Things. The Hon. Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner was born...
EvelynWaugh (1903–1966) was a British writer, journalist and reviewer, generally considered one of the leading English prose writers of the 20th century...
Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer EvelynWaugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s...
Raban Waugh (8 July 1898 – 3 September 1981) was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known EvelynWaugh, uncle of Auberon Waugh and son...
Alexander Waugh /ˈɔːbərən ˈwɔː/ (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist EvelynWaugh. He...
Dorothy Sayers (Murder Must Advertise), and the poet John Betjeman. EvelynWaugh's 1930 novel Vile Bodies, adapted as the 2003 film Bright Young Things...
A Handful of Dust is a novel by the British writer EvelynWaugh. First published in 1934, it is often grouped with the author's early, satirical comic...
honorary attaché in Athens and Cairo, an Oxford friend of EvelynWaugh, and, according to Waugh's letters, one of his "romances". He is, together with Hugh...
Alexander Evelyn Michael Waugh (born 1963) is an English writer, critic, and journalist. Among other books, he has written Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography...
Vile Bodies is the second novel by EvelynWaugh, published in 1930. It satirises the bright young things, the rich young people partying in London after...
(1994). EvelynWaugh: The Later Years, 1939–1966. London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31166-2. Sykes, Christopher (1975). EvelynWaugh – a Biography...
EvelynWaugh, first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled The Temple at Thatch, was destroyed by Waugh while...
Arthur Waugh (27 August 1866 – 26 June 1943) was an English author, literary critic and publisher. He was the father of the authors Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh...
mixed with many intellectual and literary figures of the age, including EvelynWaugh, who based the character of Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited partly...
on the list. In February 2016, Time included the male British author EvelynWaugh on its "100 Most Read Female Writers in College Classes" list, generating...
The Sword of Honour is a trilogy of novels by EvelynWaugh which loosely parallel Waugh's experiences during the Second World War. Published by Chapman...
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