–The latest issue of The Oldie has an article by Robert Fitzpatrick entitled “The Real Captain Grimes”. Here’s the opening paragraph:
In his 1928 novel, Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh created one of his most famous comic characters, Captain Grimes. A short, alcoholic, one-legged schoolmaster with a history of pederasty, he teaches at Llanabba Castle, a prep school in North Wales. The school was based on Arnold House, where Waugh taught between January and July 1925. Grimes reveals that he was removed from his public school shortly after his 16th birthday, although he was helped on his way with a letter of recommendation from his housemaster: ‘That’s the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.’ He also confesses that he was moved on from several teaching positions in the past. ‘Funny thing, I can always get on all right for about six weeks, and then I land in the soup.’…
The article continues with the explanation that “Captain Grimes was based on a schoolmaster, Richard Young” who also taught at Arnold House. The article is behind a paywall but is available to subscription holders at this link.
—The Times has published an obituary of photographer Mark Gerson whose death was noted in a previous post. The Times article offers more details than previous obituaries relating to the first of Gerson’s two visits to Waugh’s home in Combe Florey:
…When Mark Gerson received a call from a literary agent asking if he might photograph Evelyn Waugh at his country pile in 1959, the offer was not an immediately enticing one. Waugh was a notoriously prickly man and his loathing of the press was well documented. Plus, Waugh didn’t want to pay; instead, Gerson was permitted to take pictures of anything he liked and retain the copyright.
Gerson “agreed with alacrity” — this was Evelyn Waugh, after all — and off he sped to Somerset with his wife in a beaten-up Vauxhall Cresta. Midway through the journey the car broke down. They called a mechanic and, after some trepidation, the Waugh household. The reply was frosty. The family was waiting for their lunch — could the Gersons be as quick as possible?
The couple arrived an hour later to find Waugh’s children sitting sullenly at the table and helped themselves to a plate of fish from the sideboard. Waugh muttered gruffly whether all photographers had to rush around in such an absurd manner, and after lunch he disappeared. Following a perfunctory tour of the house from Waugh’s wife, Laura, the Gersons settled into the local pub for the evening and returned the following day. Again, no sign of Waugh, who curtly apologised later for not being present to point out “more interesting pieces of furniture”.
In the afternoon, Waugh reappeared in a merrier mood. Gerson took photographs of him smoking a cigar and writing with his ancient quill pen in his study, and shots of the family (including his son, Auberon, who was convalescing after accidentally shooting himself in the chest while on army duty in Cyprus). Evelyn requested no colour shots because “I come out looking all pink”. Gerson took no notice and later, when he presented the photos, Waugh’s only comment was that “they will please the simple tastes of my Italian servants”.
In a letter, Waugh sternly rebuked Gerson for not taking more time over the dining room — “it was careless of you to leave the gin bottles,” he wrote, “and not display more of the silver” — and asked him to refrain from sharing his address to the rapacious press, but he enclosed a signed copy of A Handful of Dust…
The Times article, which is unattributed, may have been based on Gerson’s papers which would probably include correspondence from Waugh. The full article, which offers more details on other points not perviously discussed, is available here.
–A literary website called instaread.co has a review of a recent autobiography by Graydon Carter. This was entitled When the Going Was Good. Here’s the introductory paragraph:
In When the Going Was Good (2025), Graydon Carter recounts his rise from a struggling Canadian newcomer in New York to one of the most influential magazine editors of his era. He built momentum at major publications, co-founded Spy, and led Vanity Fair under Si Newhouse. Carter offers an insider’s view of elite cultural circles while describing how he assembled a remarkable team and steered Vanity Fair to prominence. His memoir captures the energy, ambition, and fading glamour of the print magazine’s golden age. The title, When the Going Was Good, is a reference to Evelyn Waugh’s collected travel writing, published a few years before Carter was born. Carter recently reread the book and felt it aged better than him…
The full review is accessible here.
–A website called Fourble.co.uk has posted a podcast recording of an earlier dramatized version of Waugh’s novel The Loved One. This is probably a 1990 Radio 4 version that was broadcast by the BBC. Here’s the introduction:
Hollywood, 1947. Failed poet/screenwriter Dennis Barlow disgraces Hollywood’s British community by taking a job in a pets’ cemetery.
He is given the chance to redeem himself by arranging a colleague’s funeral, but love rather than redemption looms at the Whispering Glades Funeral Home.
Starring Rupert Graves and Miranda Richardson.
Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 satire on the American way of death.
Dramatised in three parts by Bill Matthews…
Full cast and other details are available here. Whether and on what terms this podcast is available outside the UK is presumably also available on the Fourble.co.uk home page.
–Sotheby’s has on offer a signed UK first edition of Black Mischief. Among other features this book includes “the original patterned faux-snakeskin cloth, with spine lettered in gilt, in the unclipped wrapper, accompanied by the rare Book Society ‘Book of the Month For October’ wrap-around band.” The asking price is $10,000. Here’s a link to the details.
