After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.ĭuring the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.
In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.” He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History.
In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher.
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