The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh
by Evelyn Waugh 
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"Literature is the right use of language irrespective of the subject or the reason of the utterance...."For most of his career Evelyn Waugh had to supplement his earnings from novels by writing for newspapers and magazines. He also wrote out of conviction. His journalism included articles, news reports, public letters, reviews and essays. Sometimes these pieces are funny, assertive or paradoxical. Sometimes they are formal or evocative. Always they are lucid and individual.
Topical articles show more deal directly and amusingly with the social scene we find fictionalized in the early novels. Essays describe places, people, events - Abyssinia and the Arctic, the Holy Places and Hollywood, Msgr. Knox and Marshal Tito, a commando raid and the Vatican Council. Indirectly they reveal the aesthetic principles and the conservative and Roman Catholic opinions which underlie Waugh's later fiction. Waugh reviewed a wide range of authors, exercising a rare gift for appreciation as often as his more famous talent for debunking.
The success of Brideshead Revisited enabled Waugh to write occasional pieces when, and iin hte manner, he chose. He used this freedom to tease classlessness and Modernism. Thus emerged the Waugh of legend, the flamboyant snob and reactionary. But the provocateur was also prescient, and many of his once-reactionary opinions now command respect. -- show less
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As a text navigational device, this book is admirable; the index is complete and accurate, the table of contents identifies the full title of each essay/review, along with the name of the book under review, and numerous footnotes refer the reader hither and yon, always with exactitude. If only there were something of interest to be found if one follows the ample guideposts. It 's as if one had an exemplary travel guide to Kansas.
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Author Information
132+ Works 56,514 Members
Born in Hampstead and educated at Oxford University, Evelyn Waugh came from a literary family. His elder brother, Alec was a novelist, and his father, Arthur Waugh, was the influential head of a large publishing house. Even in his school days, Waugh showed sings of the profound belief in Catholicism and brilliant wit that were to mark his later show more years. Waugh began publishing his novels in the late 1920's. He joined the Royal Marines at the beginning of World War II and was one of the first to volunteer for commando service. In 1944 he survived a plane crash in Yugoslavia and, while hiding in a cave, corrected the proofs of one of his novels. Waugh's early novels, Decline and Fall (1927), Vile Bodies (1930), and A Handful of Dust (1934), established him as one of the funniest and most brilliant satirists the British had seen in years. He was particularly skillful at poking fun at the scramble for prominence among the upper classes and the struggle between the generations. He lived for a while in Hollywood, about which he wrote The Loved One (1948), a scathing attack on the United States's overly sentimental funeral practices. His greatest works, however, are Brideshead Revisited (1945), which has been made into a highly popular television miniseries, and the trilogy Sword of Honor (1965), composed of Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), and The End of the Battle (1961). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Evelyn Waugh has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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- People/Characters
- Evelyn Waugh
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 828.91208 — Literature & rhetoric English & Old English literatures English miscellaneous writings English miscellaneous writings 1900- English miscellaneous writings 1900-1999 English miscellaneous writings 1900-1945 Prose
- LCC
- PR6045 .A97 .A6 — Language and Literature English English Literature 1900-1960
- BISAC
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- 68
- Popularity
- 457,790
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.79)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
