Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and the Financial Times

A completely fresh view of one of the most gifted—and fascinating—writers of our time, the enigmatic author of Brideshead Revisited

Graham Greene hailed Evelyn Waugh as “the greatest novelist of my generation,” and in recent years Waugh’s reputation has only grown. Now, half a century after Waugh’s death in 1966, with Evelyn Waugh, Philip Eade has delivered a hugely entertaining biography that is both authoritative and full of new information, some of it sensational.

Drawing on extensive unseen primary sources, Eade’s book sheds new light on many of the key phases and themes of Waugh’s life: his difficult relationship with his embarrassingly sentimental father; his formative homosexual affairs at Oxford; his unrequited love for various Bright Young Things; his disastrous first marriage; his momentous conversion to Roman Catholicism; his unconventional yet successful second marriage; his checkered wartime career; and his shattering nervous breakdown. Along the way, we come to understand not only Waugh’s complex relationship with the aristocracy, but also the astonishing power of his wit, and the love, fear, and loathing that he variously inspired in others. Waugh was famously difficult, and Eade brilliantly captures the myriad facets of his character, even as he casts new light on the novels that have dazzled generations of readers.

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Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and the Financial Times

A completely fresh view of one of the most gifted—and fascinating—writers of our time, the enigmatic author of Brideshead Revisited

Graham Greene hailed Evelyn Waugh as “the greatest novelist of my generation,” and in recent years Waugh’s reputation has only grown. Now, half a century after Waugh’s death in 1966, with Evelyn Waugh, Philip Eade has delivered a hugely entertaining biography that is both authoritative and full of new information, some of it sensational.

Drawing on extensive unseen primary sources, Eade’s book sheds new light on many of the key phases and themes of Waugh’s life: his difficult relationship with his embarrassingly sentimental father; his formative homosexual affairs at Oxford; his unrequited love for various Bright Young Things; his disastrous first marriage; his momentous conversion to Roman Catholicism; his unconventional yet successful second marriage; his checkered wartime career; and his shattering nervous breakdown. Along the way, we come to understand not only Waugh’s complex relationship with the aristocracy, but also the astonishing power of his wit, and the love, fear, and loathing that he variously inspired in others. Waugh was famously difficult, and Eade brilliantly captures the myriad facets of his character, even as he casts new light on the novels that have dazzled generations of readers.

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Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited

by Philip Eade
Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited

by Philip Eade

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Overview

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and the Financial Times

A completely fresh view of one of the most gifted—and fascinating—writers of our time, the enigmatic author of Brideshead Revisited

Graham Greene hailed Evelyn Waugh as “the greatest novelist of my generation,” and in recent years Waugh’s reputation has only grown. Now, half a century after Waugh’s death in 1966, with Evelyn Waugh, Philip Eade has delivered a hugely entertaining biography that is both authoritative and full of new information, some of it sensational.

Drawing on extensive unseen primary sources, Eade’s book sheds new light on many of the key phases and themes of Waugh’s life: his difficult relationship with his embarrassingly sentimental father; his formative homosexual affairs at Oxford; his unrequited love for various Bright Young Things; his disastrous first marriage; his momentous conversion to Roman Catholicism; his unconventional yet successful second marriage; his checkered wartime career; and his shattering nervous breakdown. Along the way, we come to understand not only Waugh’s complex relationship with the aristocracy, but also the astonishing power of his wit, and the love, fear, and loathing that he variously inspired in others. Waugh was famously difficult, and Eade brilliantly captures the myriad facets of his character, even as he casts new light on the novels that have dazzled generations of readers.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250143297
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 10/10/2017
Pages: 464
Product dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

PHILIP EADE has worked as a criminal barrister, English teacher, and journalist. His first book, Sylvia Queen of the Headhunters, was a runner-up for the Biographers' Club Prize; his second, Prince Philip, became a Sunday Times bestseller. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Family Tree xv

Preface xxi

1 Second Son 1

2 The Sadism of Youth 15

3 Serving Lord Kitchener 30

4 A Lesser Place than Eton 40

5 Watertight Compartments 53

6 All That One Dreams 66

7 His Poor Dead Heart 80

8 Pure as Driven Slush 90

9 Becoming a Man of Letters 103

10 Shevelyn 114

11 A Common Experience, I'm Told 125

12 Perversion to Rome 140

13 The Dutch Girl 150

14 Off to the Forest 170

15 I Can't Advise You in My Favour 184

16 Goodness She is a Decent Girl 200

17 A War to End Waugh 215

18 Head Unbloodied but Bowed 238

19 A Book to Bring Tears 252

20 The Occupation 267

21 Off My Rocker 288

22 Suitably Sequestered 302

23 Decline and Fall 319

Epilogue 333

Notes 337

Select Bibliography 375

Index 383

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