Editing Evelyn Waugh (section)

== Works ==

=== Themes and style ===

Wykes observes that Waugh's novels reprise and fictionalise the principal events of his life, although in an early essay Waugh wrote: "Nothing is more insulting to a novelist than to assume that he is incapable of anything but the mere transcription of what he observes".<ref name= Wykes209/> The reader should not assume that the author agreed with the opinions expressed by his fictional characters.<ref>"People Who Want To Sue Me", ''Daily Mail'', 31 May 1930, in Gallagher, pp. 72–73</ref> Nevertheless, in the Introduction to the ''Complete Short Stories'', Ann Pasternak Slater said that the "delineation of social prejudices and the language in which they are expressed is part of Waugh's meticulous observation of his contemporary world".<ref name="Slater"/>

The critic [[Clive James]] said of Waugh: "Nobody ever wrote a more unaffectedly elegant English&nbsp;... its hundreds of years of steady development culminate in him".<ref>James, p. 799</ref> As his talent developed and matured, he maintained what literary critic Andrew Michael Roberts called "an exquisite sense of the ludicrous, and a fine aptitude for exposing false attitudes".<ref>Roberts, pp. 331–332</ref> In the first stages of his 40-year writing career, before his conversion to Catholicism in 1930, Waugh was the novelist of the [[Bright Young People]] generation. His first two novels, ''[[Decline and Fall]]'' (1928) and ''[[Vile Bodies]]'' (1930), comically reflect a futile society, populated by two-dimensional, basically unbelievable characters in circumstances too fantastic to evoke the reader's emotions.<ref name= Hollis5>Hollis, pp. 5–7</ref> A typical Waugh trademark evident in the early novels is rapid, unattributed dialogue in which the participants can be readily identified.<ref name= Slater/> At the same time Waugh was writing serious essays, such as "The War and the Younger Generation", in which he castigates his own generation as "crazy and sterile" people.<ref>"The War and the Younger Generation", first published in ''The Spectator'', 13 April 1929, reprinted in Gallagher, pp. 63–65</ref>

Waugh's conversion to Catholicism did not noticeably change the nature of his next two novels, ''[[Black Mischief]]'' (1934) and ''[[A Handful of Dust]]'' (1934), but, in the latter novel, the elements of [[farce]] are subdued, and the protagonist, Tony Last, is recognisably a person rather than a comic cipher.<ref name= Hollis5/> Waugh's first fiction with a Catholic theme was the short story "Out of Depth" (1933) about the immutability of the Mass.<ref>Hollis, p. 8</ref> From the mid-1930s onwards, Catholicism and conservative politics were much featured in his journalistic and non-fiction writing<ref>Gallagher, p. 155</ref> before he reverted to his former manner with ''Scoop'' (1938), a novel about journalism, journalists, and unsavoury journalistic practices.<ref name= Patey157>Patey, p. 157</ref>

In ''Work Suspended and Other Stories'' Waugh introduced "real" characters and a first-person narrator, signalling the literary style he would adopt in ''Brideshead Revisited'' a few years later.<ref>Hollis, pp. 14–15</ref> ''Brideshead'', which questions the meaning of human existence without God, is the first novel in which Evelyn Waugh clearly presents his conservative religious and political views.<ref name= StannardODNB/> In the [[Life (magazine)|''Life'']] magazine article "Fan Fare" (1946), Waugh said that "you can only leave God out [of fiction] by making your characters pure abstractions" and that his future novels shall be "the attempt to represent man more fully which, to me, means only one thing, man in his relation to God."<ref name= FF>"Fan Fare", first published in ''Life'' magazine, 8 April 1946, reprinted in Gallagher (ed.), pp. 300–304</ref> As such, the novel ''[[Helena (1950 novel)|Helena]]'' (1950) is Evelyn Waugh's most philosophically Christian book.<ref>Sykes, p. 319</ref>

In ''Brideshead'', the [[proletarian]] junior officer Hooper illustrates a theme that persists in Waugh's postwar fiction: the rise of mediocrity in the "Age of the Common Man".<ref name= StannardODNB/> In the trilogy ''[[Sword of Honour]]'' (''Men at Arms'', 1952; ''Officers and Gentlemen'', 1955, ''Unconditional Surrender'', 1961) the social pervasiveness of mediocrity is personified in the semi-comical character "Trimmer", a sloven and a fraud who triumphs by contrivance.<ref>Patey, pp. 328–329</ref> In the novella ''[[Scott-King's Modern Europe]]'' (1947), Waugh's pessimism about the future is in the schoolmaster's admonition: "I think it would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world".<ref>Quoted from "Scott-King's Modern Europe" in  {{cite journal|author-link= William F. Buckley, Jr.|last= Buckley|first= William F.|title= Evelyn Waugh R.I.P.|url= http://www.nationalreview.com/article/215628/evelyn-waugh-rip-william-f-buckley-jr |journal= National Review|date= 3 May 1966|access-date= 12 May 2016}}</ref> Likewise, such cynicism pervades the novel ''[[Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future|Love Among the Ruins]]'' (1953), set in a dystopian, welfare-state Britain that is so socially disagreeable that [[euthanasia]] is the most sought-after of the government's social services.<ref>Hollis, pp. 35–36</ref> Of the postwar novels, Patey says that ''[[The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold]]'' (1957) stands out "a kind of mock-novel, a sly invitation to a game".<ref name= Patey339/> Waugh's final work of fiction, "Basil Seal Rides Again" (1962), features characters from the prewar novels; Waugh admitted that the work was a "senile attempt to recapture the manner of my youth".<ref>Unpublished letter to Ann Fleming, December 1962, reproduced in Slater, p. 487</ref> Stylistically this final story begins in the same fashion as the first story, "The Balance" of 1926, with a "fusillade of unattributed dialogue".<ref name= Slater>Slater, p. xii</ref>

=== Reception ===

Of Waugh's early books, ''Decline and Fall'' was hailed by [[Arnold Bennett]] in the ''[[Evening Standard]]'' as "an uncompromising and brilliantly malicious satire".<ref>Stannard, Vol. I, p. 158</ref> The critical reception of ''Vile Bodies'' two years later was even more enthusiastic, with Rebecca West predicting that Waugh was "destined to be the dazzling figure of his age".<ref name= Patey33/> However, ''A Handful of Dust'', later widely regarded as a masterpiece, received a more muted welcome from critics, despite the author's own high estimation of the work.<ref>Hastings, pp. 313–314</ref> Chapter VI, "Du Côté de Chez Todd", of ''A Handful of Dust'', with Tony Last condemned forever to read Dickens to his mad jungle captor, was thought by the critic [[Henry Green|Henry Yorke]] to reduce an otherwise believable book to "phantasy".<ref>Stannard, Vol. I, p. 377</ref> [[Cyril Connolly]]'s first reaction to the book was that Waugh's powers were failing, an opinion that he later revised.<ref>Stannard, Vol. I, p. 375</ref>

In the later 1930s, Waugh's inclination to Catholic and conservative polemics affected his standing with the general reading public.<ref name= StannardODNB/> The Campion biography is said by David Wykes to be "so rigidly biased that it has no claims to make as history".<ref>Wykes, p. 112</ref> The pro-fascist tone in parts of ''Waugh in Abyssinia'' offended readers and critics and prevented its publication in America.<ref>Hastings, p. 345</ref> There was general relief among critics when ''Scoop'', in 1938, indicated a return to Waugh's earlier comic style. Critics had begun to think that his wit had been displaced by partisanship and propaganda.<ref name= Patey157/>

Waugh maintained his reputation in 1942, with ''Put Out More Flags'', which sold well despite wartime restrictions on paper and printing.<ref>Stannard, Vol. II pp. 72–73</ref> Its public reception, however, did not compare with that accorded to ''Brideshead Revisited'' three years later, on both sides of the Atlantic. ''Brideshead'''s selection as the American [[Book of the Month Club|Book of the Month]] swelled its US sales to an extent that dwarfed those in Britain, which was affected by paper shortages.<ref>Stannard, Vol. II p. 148</ref> Despite the public's enthusiasm, critical opinion was split. ''Brideshead's'' Catholic standpoint offended some critics who had greeted Waugh's earlier novels with warm praise.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Osborne|first= John W.|title= ''Book Review'': Christianity and Chaos|journal= Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies|volume= 36|issue= 3|publisher= Lock Haven University|location= Lock Haven, Pa.|year= 2006|url= https://fama.us.es/iii/cas/login?service=https%3A%2F%2Ffama.us.es%3A443%2Fpatroninfo~S5%2F0%2Fredirect%3D%2Fwamvalidate%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252F0-literature.proquest.com.fama.us.es%253A80%252FsearchFulltext.do%253Fid%253DR4442701%2526divLevel%253D0%2526area%253Dabell%2526forward%253Dcritref_ftIIITICKET&scope=5|access-date= 12 May 2016|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171228155051/https://fama.us.es/iii/cas/login?service=https%3A%2F%2Ffama.us.es%3A443%2Fpatroninfo~S5%2F0%2Fredirect%3D%2Fwamvalidate%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252F0-literature.proquest.com.fama.us.es%253A80%252FsearchFulltext.do%253Fid%253DR4442701%2526divLevel%253D0%2526area%253Dabell%2526forward%253Dcritref_ftIIITICKET&scope=5|archive-date= 28 December 2017|url-status= dead|df= dmy-all}}{{subscription required}}</ref> Its perceived snobbery and its deference to the aristocracy were attacked by, among others, [[Conor Cruise O'Brien]] who, in the Irish literary magazine ''[[The Bell (magazine)|The Bell]]'', wrote of Waugh's "almost mystical veneration" for the upper classes.<ref>Conor Cruise O'Brien in "The Pieties of Evelyn Waugh", reprinted in Stannard: ''Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage'', pp. 255–263. (O'Brien used the pen-name "Donat Donnelly").</ref><ref>Patey, pp. 262–263</ref> Fellow writer [[Rose Macaulay]] believed that Waugh's genius had been adversely affected by the intrusion of his right-wing partisan ''alter ego'' and that he had lost his detachment: "In art so naturally ironic and detached as his, this is a serious loss".<ref>{{cite journal|author-link= Rose Macaulay|last= Macaulay|first= Rose|title=  The Best and the Worst II: Evelyn Waugh|journal= Horizon|date= December 1946|pages= 360–376}}</ref><ref>Carpenter (ed.), p. 288</ref> Conversely, the book was praised by Yorke, [[Graham Greene]] and, in glowing terms, by [[Harold Acton]] who was particularly impressed by its evocation of 1920s Oxford.<ref>Hastings, p. 492</ref> In 1959, at the request of publishers Chapman and Hall and in some deference to his critics, Waugh revised the book and wrote in a preface: "I have modified the grosser passages but not obliterated them because they are an essential part of the book".<ref>From Waugh's preface to the  revised edition, published by Chapman and Hall, 1960.</ref>

In "Fan Fare", Waugh forecasts that his future books will be unpopular because of their religious theme.<ref name= FF/> On publication in 1950, ''Helena'' was received indifferently by the public and by critics, who disparaged the awkward mixing of 20th-century schoolgirl slang with otherwise reverential prose.<ref>Hastings, pp. 538–541</ref> Otherwise, Waugh's prediction proved unfounded; all his fiction remained in print and sales stayed healthy. During his successful 1957 lawsuit against the ''Daily Express'', Waugh's counsel produced figures showing total sales to that time of over four million books, two thirds in Britain and the rest in America.<ref name= S382>Stannard, Vol. II pp. 382–385</ref> ''Men at Arms'', the first volume of his war trilogy, won the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] in 1953;<ref>Patey, p. 309</ref> initial critical comment was lukewarm, with Connolly likening ''Men at Arms'' to beer rather than champagne.<ref>Stannard, Vol. II p. 306</ref> Connolly changed his view later, calling the completed trilogy "the finest novel to come out of the war".<ref>Stannard, Vol. II pp. 438–439</ref> Of Waugh's other major postwar works, the Knox biography was admired within Waugh's close circle but criticised by others in the Church for its depiction of Knox as an unappreciated victim of the Catholic hierarchy.<ref>Patey, p. 343</ref> The book did not sell well—"like warm cakes", according to Waugh.<ref>Amory (ed.), p. 571</ref> ''Pinfold'' surprised the critics by its originality. Its plainly autobiographical content, Hastings suggests, gave the public a fixed image of Waugh: "stout, splenetic, red-faced and reactionary, a figure from burlesque complete with cigar, bowler hat and loud checked suit".<ref>Hastings, p. 567</ref>

=== Reputation ===

In 1973, Waugh's diaries were serialised in ''[[The Observer]]'' prior to publication in book form in 1976. The revelations about his private life, thoughts and attitudes created controversy. Although Waugh had removed embarrassing entries relating to his Oxford years and his first marriage, there was sufficient left on the record to enable enemies to project a negative image of the writer as intolerant, snobbish and sadistic, with pronounced fascist leanings.<ref name= StannardODNB/> Some of this picture, it was maintained by Waugh's supporters, arose from poor editing of the diaries, and a desire to transform Waugh from a writer to a "character".<ref name = Wheatcroft>Review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of ''The Letters of Evelyn Waugh'', ''Spectator'', 11 October 1980. Reprinted in Stannard: ''Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage'', pp. 504–507</ref> Nevertheless, a popular conception developed of Waugh as a monster.<ref name=Hastings627>Hastings, p. 627</ref> When, in 1980, a selection of his letters was published, his reputation became the subject of further discussion. [[Philip Larkin]], reviewing the collection in ''[[The Guardian]]'', thought that it demonstrated Waugh's elitism; to receive a letter from him, it seemed, "one would have to have a nursery nickname and be a member of [[White's]], a Roman Catholic, a high-born lady or an Old Etonian novelist".<ref>Review by Philip Larkin of ''The Letters of Evelyn Waugh'', ''The Guardian'', 4 September 1980. Reprinted in Stannard: ''Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage'', pp. 502–504</ref>
[[File:Castle Howard, Yorkshire.jpg|thumb|[[Castle Howard]], in [[Yorkshire]], was used to represent "Brideshead" in the 1981 television series and in a subsequent 2008 film.]]

The publication of the diaries and letters promoted increased interest in Waugh and his works and caused publication of much new material. Christopher Sykes's biography had appeared in 1975, between 1980 and 1998 three more full biographies were issued and other biographical and critical studies have continued to be produced. A collection of Waugh's journalism and reviews was published in 1983, revealing a fuller range of his ideas and beliefs. The new material provided further grounds for debate between Waugh's supporters and detractors.<ref name= StannardODNB/>

The 1981 [[Granada Television]] [[Brideshead Revisited (TV serial)|adaptation of ''Brideshead Revisited'']] introduced a new generation to Waugh's works, in Britain and in America.<ref name="Hastings627" /> There had been earlier television treatment of Waugh's fiction, as ''Sword of Honour'' had been serialised by the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] in 1967, but the impact of Granada's ''Brideshead'' was much wider. Its nostalgic depiction of a vanished form of Englishness appealed to the American mass market;<ref name="StannardODNB" /> ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine's TV critic described the series as "a novel&nbsp;... made into a poem", and listed it among the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time".<ref>{{cite magazine|title= 100 Best TV Shows of All Time|magazine=Time|url= https://time.com/collection/all-time-100-tv-shows/|access-date=29 December 2020}}</ref> There have been further cinematic Waugh adaptations: [[A Handful of Dust (film)|''A Handful of Dust'']] in 1988, ''Vile Bodies'' (filmed as [[Bright Young Things (film)|''Bright Young Things'']]) in 2003 and [[Brideshead Revisited (film)|''Brideshead Revisited'']] again in 2008. These popular treatments have maintained the public's appetite for Waugh's novels, all of which remain in print and continue to sell.<ref name="StannardODNB" /> Several have been listed among various compiled lists of the world's greatest novels.{{refn|See [[Time's List of the 100 Best Novels]]; The ''Observer'' critics' "100 greatest novels of all time";<ref>{{cite journal|last= McCrum|first= Robert|title= The 100 Greatest Novels of all Time|journal= The Observer|url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction/print|date= 12 October 2003|access-date=23 November 2010}}</ref> Random House Modern Library's "100 Best Novels".<ref>{{cite web|title= 100 Best Novels|url= http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/|publisher= Random House|access-date=23 November 2010}}</ref>|group= n}}

Stannard concludes that beneath his public mask, Waugh was "a dedicated artist and a man of earnest faith, struggling against the dryness of his soul".<ref name= StannardODNB/> [[Graham Greene]], in a letter to ''[[The Times]]'' shortly after Waugh's death, acknowledged him as "the greatest novelist of my generation",<ref>Stannard, Vol. II p. 492</ref> while ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine's obituarist called him "the grand old mandarin of modern British prose" and asserted that his novels "will continue to survive as long as there are readers who can savor what critic [[V. S. Pritchett]] calls 'the beauty of his malice'&nbsp;".<ref>{{cite magazine|title= The Beauty of His Malice|magazine= Time|url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899186-1,00.html|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121106111017/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899186-1,00.html|url-status= dead|archive-date= 6 November 2012|date= 22 April 1966|access-date=23 November 2010}}</ref> Nancy Mitford said of him in a television interview, "What nobody remembers about Evelyn is that everything with him was jokes. Everything. That's what none of the people who wrote about him seem to have taken into account at all".<ref>Quoted in Byrne, p. 348</ref>

=== Bibliography ===
{{for|a listing of Waugh's works|Evelyn Waugh bibliography}}