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Evelyn Waugh was an English writer from London. He had a successful career as a novelist, a biographer, a travel writer, a journalist, and a book reviewer. He is primarily remembered for the satirical novel "Decline and Fall" (1928), the autobiographical novel "A Handful of Dust" (1934), the nostalgia-themed family saga "Brideshead Revisited" (1945), and the war-themed trilogy "Sword of Honour" (1952-1961). Waugh converted to Roman Catholicism in the early 1930s, and his works after that point tended to feature Catholic characters.
In 1903, Waugh was born in West Hampstead, London. His father was the professional writer and literary critic Arthur Waugh (1866-1943). Through his father's side of the family, Waugh was a descendant of the nonconformist preacher Alexander Waugh (1754-1827). His ancestor had co-founded the London Missionary Society, an interdenominational evangelical missionary society. Waugh's known ancestry included English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and French Huguenot people.
Waugh was home-schooled by his mother until the age of 7. In September 1910, Waugh began life as a day pupil at the Heath Mount preparatory school. By that time, he had started writing short stories as a hobby. At school, Waugh was a notorious school bully. One of his victims was Cecil Beaton, later a professional photographer who recorded his memories of Waugh's bullying. In his free time from school, Waugh wrote theatrical plays and convinced his neighborhood friends to perform them with him.
During the early years of World War I, Waugh and several of his schoolmates from Heath Mount served as messengers for the War Office. In his final year at Heath Mount, Waugh served as the editor of the school magazine "The Cynic". Waugh aspired to attend the boarding school Sherborne School, which his father had once attended. But after his older brother Alec was expelled from Sherborne due to his homosexuality, Waugh learned that the school would not even consider him as a candidate student. In 1917, Waugh instead became a student of the Lancing College, which he considered to be inferior to Sherborne.
During his time at Lancing, Waugh published an essay about Cubism in an art magazine. It was his first published work. His teacher J. F. Roxburgh (1888-1954) encouraged Waugh's aspirations for a writing career. Another teacher, Francis Crease, trained Waugh in the arts of calligraphy and decorative design. Waugh won several prized for art and literature during his student years at Lancing. He left Lancing in December 1921, after winning a scholarship to read Modern History at Hertford College, Oxford.
During his early years in Oxford, Waugh worked as a reporter for two rival student publications: "Cherwell" and "Isis". He also worked as a film reviewer "Isis". Waugh soon joined the "Hypocrites' Club" (1921-1925), a student club for heavy drinkers and homosexuals. Waugh had his first homosexual relationships with some of the club's fellow members. Waugh devoted part of his time to writing reviews and short stories for publication, part of his time to improving his skills as a graphic artist, and part of his time partying with the club members. He neglected his formal studies, and was frequently arguing with his history tutor C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (1887-1941). Their adversarial relationship turned into mutual hatred, and Waugh continued mocking Crutwell in his literary works for decades.
Waugh left Oxford in 1924, without earning a degree. He started work on a novel, and enrolled at the art school Heatherley School of Fine Art. He soon quit his studies due to boredom, and started looking for a job. In January 1925, Waugh started working as a teacher at Arnold House, a boys' preparatory school in North Wales. Used to hanging out with large groups of friends, Waugh had trouble adjusting to the social isolation of his new position.
Waugh quit his teaching job in the summer of 1925, as he was promised a secretarial job by the experienced writer C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930). Moncrief decided against hiring him, but Waugh learned this after his resignation. At about the same time, a completed novel by Waugh was rejected by a publisher. Waugh felt desperate, and he experienced a failed suicide attempt. He spend the following couple of years as a school teacher at the village of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire and at Notting Hill in London.
Waugh started writing commercially-published fiction in 1926. In 1927, he secured a contract to write a full-length biography of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882-1882). This biography was published in April 1928, and won critical praise. His first novel "Decline and Fall" was published in September 1928, and was also met with praise and decent sales. By December 1928, the novel was in its third printing and the rights for an American reprint had already been sold. Waugh had found success in his literary career, but his personal life was still unsteady. He had a brief, failed marriage to the socialite Evelyn Gardner (1903-1994), daughter of Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere. Gardner did not tolerate her husband's infidelities and Waugh himself filed for a divorce. The marriage had lasted less than a year.
Following his separation for his wife in 1929, Waugh had no settled home for the next eight years. Despite working steadily as a writer and journalist, he relied on the hospitality of his friends instead of buying or renting a house. His novel "Vile Bodies" (1930) , was a major commercial success. It was a rather bitter satire on the Bright Young Things, a group of Bohemian aristocrats and socialites who had grained prominence in the 1920s.
In 1930, Waugh traveled to Abyssinia as a journalist, to cover the coronation of the new emperor Haile Selassie. He subsequently traveled through the British East Africa colonies and the Belgian Congo. He recorded his travel in both a travel book and an autobiographical novel. Waugh spend the winter of 1932-1933 traveling through British Guiana and Brazil. In 1934, Waugh joined an expedition to Spitsbergen in the Arctic. He returned to Ethiopia in 1935, as a war correspondent in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1937).
In April 1937, Waugh married his second wife Laura Herbert. She was a cousin of his first wife. As a wedding present, the couple received the country house Piers Court, located in Gloucestershire. He continued publishing new books in the late 1930s, though they primarily expressed his increasingly conservative political views. In September 1939, Waugh let his wife and young children move to Pixton Park in Somerset, the Herbert family's country seat. It was considered a safer location in wartime conditions. he was commissioned into the Royal Marines in December 1939.
Waugh's first experience of combat service in World War II was the Battle of Dakar (September 1940) in French West Africa. In November 1940, Waugh was posted to a commando unit. In May 1941, Waugh and his unit helped in the evacuation of Crete. In May 1942, Waugh was transferred to the Royal Horse Guards. In 1943, Waugh started parachute training. He fractured a fibula during an exercise, and he applied for three months' unpaid leave. He started working on the novel "Brideshead Revisited" during his recovery. Waugh's extended leave lasted until June 1944. He then served as a liaison to Partisan forces in Yugoslavia. He returned to London in March 1945.
"Brideshead Revisited" was published in May 1945, and was more popular than any of his previous works. Waugh was released by the army in September 1945. He continued traveling as a journalist in various European locations. He expressed his frustrations about postwar European travel in the novella "Scott-King's Modern Europe" (1947). In the early 1950s, he started working on war novels. He also completed the dystopian novel "Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future" (1953), which displayed his contempt for the post-war world. He seemed to be prematurely aged at the time. By the time Waugh completed his 50th year, he was partially deaf, rheumatic, and suffering from recurring insomnia and depression. He used alcohol for self-medication.
In 1954, Waugh's doctors were concerned about his deteriorating health and advised him to travel again. He took a ship for Sri Lanka, but displayed signs of paranoia during the journey. He thought that the other passengers were whispering about him, and complained about hearing voices even when he was alone. A subsequent medical examination revealed that Waugh was suffering from bromide poisoning from his drugs regimen. When his medication was changed, his hallucinations disappeared. He recorded his experience in the autobiographical novel "The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold" (1957).
In 1955, Waugh was visited at home by an overly aggressive journalist who demanded an interview. No longer feeling safe at Piers Court, Waugh decided to sell his long-time residence. In 1956, Waugh and his family moved to the Combe Florey House in Somerset. In the late 1950s, he ceased publishing new works while working on the biography of a Catholic theologian. Due to facing money shortages, Waugh agreed to be interviewed by the BBC in 1960. It was his first interview in years, as he had been systematically avoiding journalists.
Waugh published his last major work in 1961, the war novel "Unconditional Surrender". He started work on his autobiography in 1962. Its first volume was published in 1964, under the title "A Little Learning". He changed the names of several of the individuals mentioned in the book, in order to avoid scandal. The book attracted little attention. In desperate need of funds in 1965, Waugh signed contracts to write several non-fiction books. His physical and mental deterioration prevented him from working on any of these books, and his only literal activity at the time was editing work in the combined edition of his war novels.
Waugh died of heart failure in April 1966, while attending the Easter Mass with members of his family. He was 62-years-old at the time of his death. He was buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Peter & St Paul, located in Combe Florey. A Requiem Mass in his honor was celebrated in Westminster Cathedral. His novels have received several adaptations since his death, and their popularity has endured into the 21st century.
