Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh 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.
Alexander Raban Waugh was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known Evelyn Waugh, uncle of Auberon Waugh and son of Arthur Waugh, author, literary critic and publisher. His first wife was Barbara Jacobs, his second wife was Joan Chirnside and his third wife was Virginia Sorenson, author of the Newbery Medal-winning Miracles on Maple Hill.
Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In 2008, it was adapted as a film.
Vile Bodies is the second novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. It satirises the bright young things, the rich young people partying in London after World War I, and the press which fed on their doings. The original title Bright Young Things, which Waugh changed because he thought the phrase had become too clichéd, was used in Stephen Fry's 2003 film adaptation. The eventual title appears in a comment made by the novel's narrator in reference to the characters' party-driven lifestyle: "All that succession and repetition of massed humanity... Those vile bodies...". The book was dedicated to B. G. and D. G., Waugh's friends Bryan Guinness and his wife Diana.
The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy (1948) is a short satirical novel by British novelist Evelyn Waugh about the funeral business in Los Angeles, the British expatriate community in Hollywood, and the film industry.
Decline and Fall is a novel by the English author Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled The Temple at Thatch, was destroyed by Waugh while still in manuscript form. Decline and Fall is based, in part, on Waugh's schooldays at Lancing College, undergraduate years at Hertford College, Oxford, and his experience as a teacher at Arnold House in north Wales. It is a social satire that employs the author's characteristic black humour in lampooning various features of British society in the 1920s.
Black Mischief was Evelyn Waugh's third novel, published in 1932. Expanded from a novella, 'Seth', the novel chronicles the efforts of the British-educated Emperor Seth, assisted by a fellow Oxford graduate, Basil Seal, to modernise his Empire, the fictional African island of Azania, located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa.
Brian Christian de Claiborne Howard was an English poet and later a writer for the New Statesman.
Colonel The Honourable Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert, of Pixton Park in Somerset and of Teversal, in Nottinghamshire, was a British soldier, diplomat, traveller, and intelligence officer associated with Albanian independence. He was twice offered the throne of Albania. From 1911 until his death he was a Conservative Member of Parliament. His eldest half-brother was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923), who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.
The Sword of Honour is a trilogy of novels by Evelyn Waugh which loosely parallel Waugh's experiences during the Second World War. Published by Chapman & Hall from 1952 to 1961, the novels are: Men at Arms (1952); Officers and Gentlemen (1955); and Unconditional Surrender (1961), marketed as The End of the Battle in the United States and Canada.
Arthur Waugh was an English author, literary critic and publisher. He was the father of the authors Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh.
Christopher Hugh Sykes was an English writer. Born into the northern English landowning Sykes family of Sledmere, he was the second son of the diplomat Sir Mark Sykes (1879–1919), and his wife, Edith. His sister was Angela Sykes, the sculptor. His politician uncle, also Christopher Sykes, was, for a time, a close friend of Edward VII.
Mrs. Algernon Stitch, more familiarly known as Julia Stitch, is a character created by Evelyn Waugh, best known for her role in the novel Scoop. The character was inspired by Waugh's friendship with the well-connected socialite, Lady Diana Cooper.
The Temple at Thatch was an unpublished novel by the British author Evelyn Waugh, his first adult attempt at full-length fiction. He began writing it in 1924 at the end of his final year as an undergraduate at Hertford College, Oxford, and continued to work on it intermittently in the following 12 months. After his friend Harold Acton commented unfavourably on the draft in June 1925, Waugh burned the manuscript. In a fit of despondency from this and other personal disappointments he began a suicide attempt before experiencing what he termed "a sharp return to good sense".
Decline and Fall... of a Birdwatcher is a 1968 British comedy film directed by John Krish and starring Robin Phillips, Geneviève Page and Donald Wolfit. It was adapted by Ivan Foxwell, Alan Hackney and Hugh Whitemore from the 1928 novel Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.
Lady Margaret Pansy Felicia Lamb, known as Lady Pansy Lamb was an English writer under her maiden name of Pansy Pakenham. A novelist, biographer, and translator of French poetry, she was the wife of the Australian-born painter Henry Lamb.
Unconditional Surrender is a 1961 novel by the British novelist Evelyn Waugh. The novel has also been published under the title The End of the Battle. Along with the other two novels in the series, it was adapted into a 2001 TV film with Daniel Craig.
Alastair Hugh Graham was an honorary attaché in Athens and Cairo, an Oxford friend of Evelyn Waugh, and, according to Waugh's letters, one of his "romances". He is, together with Hugh Lygon and Stephen Tennant, considered the main inspiration for Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.
Elizabeth Frances Plunket Greene was an English crime novelist, writing in tandem with her husband, Richard Plunket Greene. She was part of the Bright Young Things immortalized by Evelyn Waugh in Vile Bodies.
The Hypocrites' Club was one of the student clubs at Oxford University in England. Its motto in Greek, from an Olympian Ode by Pindar, was Water is best. This led to the members being called Hypocrites, due to the fact that beer, wine and spirits were the chosen drinks.
