In “Evelyn Waugh and the Question of Inheritance,” Alexander Waugh will discuss his career as an acclaimed biographer of his own family (Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family) and that of the family of Ludwig Wittgenstein (The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War), and his experience editing the works of his grandfather Evelyn Waugh for a 21st century audience.

Waugh enthusiasts will be intrigued to learn that, according to some advance publicity for the lectures, “[Alexander] will reveal hitherto undisclosed facts about the life and works of Evelyn Waugh, garnered over many years of searching for lost and hidden letters.”

Waugh’s Mulled Claret

Francis O. Mattson

“It was shortly before midnight in early March; I had been entertaining the college intellectuals to mulled claret; the fire was roaring, the air of my room heavy with smoke and spice, and my mind weary with metaphysics.” So Charles Ryder describes the setting for his first meeting with Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited.

Ryder’s mulled claret was served to a party of five. In 1950 Waugh’s own recipe for “Mulled Claret (For Six Persons)” was printed in “As We Like It”; Cookery Recipes by Famous People, ed. Kenneth Downey (London: Arthur Barker), a collection of recipes solicited from 200 well-known people and published for the benefit of the Returned Prisoners of War Association. In accordance with post-war “regulations, restrictions, and rations,” contributors were asked to submit recipes that were “really simple and easy to follow” and to draw on ingredients currently available.

Apart from Waugh there were few creative writers among those replying: but there were contributions from Aldous Huxley (Gnocchi di patate), Christopher Fry (Melon sweet), and a characteristically dismissive “Opinion on recipes” from the vegetarian G. Bernard Shaw.

For those who might wish to try Waugh’s suggestion for a beverage “to be drunk during and after luncheon in February or after dinner on any winter evening,” we reprint the recipe here:

Take 6 bottles of red wine (it would be improper to use really fine Bordeaux, but the better the wine, the better the concoction). Any sound claret or burgundy will do. One cupful of water; 2 port glasses of brandy; 1 port glass of ginger wine; 1 orange stuffed with cloves; peel of 2 lemons; 3 sticks of cinnamon; 1 grated nutmeg.

Heat in covered cauldron. Do not allow to simmer. Serve hot and keep hot on the hob. Should be drunk at same temperature as tea.

• Evelyn Waugh Exhibit (February 27th to April 7th): "An Englishman in Catholic America," a display of artifacts, documents, first editions, letters, and photographs (Ferguson Gallery, Main Level).
   
• Evelyn Waugh Conference (March 12th & 13th): Topics include Waugh’s U.S. travels, Waugh and U.S. writers, Waugh and film, Waugh’s Catholicism. Featured speaker will be Alexander Waugh, grandson of Evelyn Waugh, on Monday evening at 6 p.m. (Ridley Auditorium, Lower Level).

All are welcome, and registration is free. To register and to obtain more information about the events and local accommodations, email (click to email) or call (410) 617-6811.

Background reading: 2003 Notre Dame Magazine essay by Arthur Jones on Evelyn Waugh and his visits to Notre Dame and Loyola College.

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It is a mistake, in my view, to hold a popularity contest between A Dance to the Music of Time and Sword of Honour. They are wonderfully complementary. We are lucky to have both. Waugh did not cover so long a spectrum. But we should see Brideshead Revisited as his verdict on the pre-war period, which in Uncle Tony's account requires six novels. And Put Out More Flags is a knockabout farce, a comic curtain-raiser to the actual war beginning with Men at Arms, continuing with Officers and Gentlemen, and ending with Unconditional Surrender. All these titles are savagely ironic, the last signalling Waugh's despairing acceptance that there is nothing he, and any other honourable souls left, can do about the appalling state of the world which has emerged from what began as a just war.