New Book On Campion Anticipated by Waugh

A new book on the life of Edmund Campion was recently published. This is Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life by UCL Professor Gerard Kilroy issued by Ashgate Publishing. The publisher’s announcement mentions Waugh’s anticipation of such a scholarly work when he wrote what he described as his own

short, popular life to bridge the gulf between [Richard Simpson’s Edmund Campion (1867)] and the definitive, scholarly biography which will doubtless appear in due course from some more suitable pen than mine. [Waugh, Edmund Campion (1935), p. x.]

Waugh deemed Simpson’s work outdated in some respects. Waugh’s book remains in print. It is cited by Professor Kilroy in his preface to the new study:

Evelyn Waugh’s gripping Edmund Campion, first published in 1935, and written with style in five months, elegantly captures the courage and glamour of Campion, even if his assessment of the political context now seems historically, and personally, conditioned.

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