Editing Evelyn Waugh (section)

=== Writer and traveller ===

[[File:CropSelassie.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Emperor [[Haile Selassie]], whose coronation Waugh attended in 1930 on the first of his three trips to [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]]]]
On 10 October 1930, Waugh, representing several newspapers, departed for [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]] to cover the coronation of [[Haile Selassie]]. He reported the event as "an elaborate propaganda effort" to convince the world that Abyssinia was a civilised nation which concealed the fact that the emperor had achieved power through barbarous means.<ref>Patey, p. 91</ref> A subsequent journey through the [[British East Africa]] colonies and the [[Belgian Congo]] formed the basis of two books; the travelogue ''Remote People'' (1931) and the comic novel ''[[Black Mischief]]'' (1932).<ref>Sykes, p. 109</ref> Waugh's next extended trip, in the winter of 1932–1933, was to [[Guyana|British Guiana]] (now Guyana) in South America, possibly taken to distract him from a long and unrequited passion for the socialite [[Teresa Jungman]].<ref>Stannard, Vol. I pp. 276, 310</ref> On arrival in [[Georgetown, Guyana|Georgetown]], Waugh arranged a river trip by steam launch into the interior. He travelled on via several staging-posts to [[Boa Vista, Roraima|Boa Vista]] in Brazil, and then took a convoluted overland journey back to Georgetown.<ref>Hastings, pp. 272–281</ref> His various adventures and encounters found their way into two further books: his travel account ''Ninety-two Days'', and the novel ''[[A Handful of Dust]]'', both published in 1934.<ref>Hastings, pp. 296, 306</ref>

Back from South America, Waugh faced accusations of obscenity and [[blasphemy]] from the Catholic journal ''[[The Tablet]]'', which objected to passages in ''Black Mischief''. He defended himself in an open letter to the [[Archbishop of Westminster]], Cardinal [[Francis Bourne]],<ref>Amory (ed.), pp. 72–78</ref> which remained unpublished until 1980. In the summer of 1934, he went on an expedition to [[Spitsbergen]] in the [[Arctic]], an experience he did not enjoy and of which he made minimal literary use.<ref>Stannard, Vol. I pp. 367–374</ref> On his return, determined to write a major Catholic biography, he selected the [[Jesuit]] martyr [[Edmund Campion]] as his subject. The book, published in 1935, caused controversy by its forthright pro-Catholic, anti-[[Protestant]] stance but brought its writer the [[Hawthornden Prize]].<ref>Patey, p. 126</ref><ref>Hastings, pp. 324–325</ref> He returned to Abyssinia in August 1935 to report the opening stages of the [[Second Italo-Abyssinian War]] for the ''Daily Mail''. Waugh, on the basis of his earlier visit, considered Abyssinia "a savage place which [[Mussolini]] was doing well to tame" according to his fellow reporter, [[Bill Deedes|William Deedes]].<ref>Deedes, p. 15</ref> Waugh saw little action and was not wholly serious in his role as a war correspondent.<ref>Davie, p. 391</ref> Deedes remarks on the older writer's snobbery: "None of us quite measured up to the company he liked to keep back at home".<ref>Deedes, pp. 35–36</ref> However, in the face of imminent Italian air attacks, Deedes found Waugh's courage "deeply reassuring".<ref>Deedes, pp. 62–63</ref> Waugh wrote up his Abyssinian experiences in a book, ''Waugh in Abyssinia'' (1936), which [[Rose Macaulay]] dismissed as a "fascist tract", on account of its pro-Italian tone.<ref>Patey, p. 141</ref> A better-known account is his novel ''[[Scoop (novel)|Scoop]]'' (1938), in which the protagonist, William Boot, is loosely based on Deedes.<ref>Stannard, Vol. I p. 406</ref>

Among Waugh's growing circle of friends were [[Diana Mitford|Diana Guinness]] and [[Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne|Bryan Guinness]] (dedicatees of ''Vile Bodies''), [[Lady Diana Cooper]] and her husband [[Duff Cooper]],<ref>Hastings, p. 263</ref> [[Nancy Mitford]] who was originally a friend of Evelyn Gardner's,<ref>Hastings, p. 191</ref> and the [[Earl Beauchamp|Lygon sisters]]. Waugh had known [[Hugh Patrick Lygon]] at Oxford; now he was introduced to the girls and their country house, [[Madresfield Court]], which became the closest that he had to a home during his years of wandering.<ref>Byrne, p. 155</ref> In 1933, on a Greek islands cruise, he was introduced by Father D'Arcy to Gabriel Herbert, eldest daughter of the late explorer [[Aubrey Herbert]]. When the cruise ended Waugh was invited to stay at the Herbert family's villa in [[Portofino]], where he first met Gabriel's 17-year-old sister, Laura.<ref>Hastings pp. 284–287</ref>