–Christmas was not a particularly happy time for the adult Evelyn Waugh, if only because his children were home from school. Here’s an example posted on a Substack.com website by Paul Fishman. This is taken from Waugh’s diaries (p. 668):
The year It’s a Wonderful Life was released [1946], Evelyn Waugh, characteristically, wasn’t feeling much Christmas spirit:
The frost has now broken and everything is now dripping and shabby and gusty. The prospect of Christmas appalls me and I look forward to the operating theatre as a happy release.
Waugh was going to have his haemorrhoids removed, thus the reference to the operating theatre. Christmas was as expected:
I made a fair show of geniality throughout the day though the spectre of a litter of shoddy toys and half-eaten sweets sickened me. Everything is so badly made nowadays that none of the children’s presents seemed to work. Luncheon was cold and poorly cooked. A ghastly day.
It wasn’t long after that that he and his wife departed on their first trip to the US in January 1947.
–Here’s an excerpt from a posting of recommended holiday reading by Dr. Robert Kaplan on medicalrepublic.com:
Waugh was the finest prose writer of his day. By 1957, age, health and drug use (chloral, bromides and amphetamines well diluted with alcohol) were catching up with him. To overcome the problems, Waugh took a sea trip to Ceylon, having obtained a fresh supply of bromide from his doctor.
The events that followed were described in his short novella, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, his most autobiographical work.
The Pinfold character develops a full-blown psychosis with paranoid delusions, hallucinations and thought insertion. Tormented to his limits, he leaves the ship after three days and, after going from Cairo to Ceylon, returns home.
His doctor confirms that he has a simple case of bromide poisoning, a diagnosis confirmed by a psychiatrist and physician. Waugh, dissatisfied with the material assessment, sees it instead as a spiritual challenge to his faith which he had overcome.
The evidence shows that Waugh did not change his ways, continuing to use bromide, chloral, paraldehyde, barbiturates and alcohol. This is a superb description of a drug-induced psychosis that even manages to include some funny parts, Waugh being Waugh.
–Finally, a book collector specializing in Penguin Books has posted a discussion of various ways to accumulate these charming volumes:
…I’ve been thinking about what I would do if I was starting now and one possibility is the Penguin Millions. These are a subset of the Penguin titles and importantly the first ‘million’ came out in 1946 so the scarce wartime crime titles can be avoided. But what is a Penguin Million and how many are there?
The first million has an explanation of the concept on the inside, in this case George Bernard Shaw had reached his ninetieth birthday in July 1946 and to mark the occasion Penguin simultaneously printed a hundred thousand copies of each of ten books. Nine of these were new to Penguin (books numbered 500 along with 560 to 567) and there was one reprint, Pygmalian (numbered 300 and originally printed in September 1941). Nowadays I doubt a million books by Shaw would sell very well but back then he was still a popular author and his works are regularly found in early Penguin lists and these titles were soon being reprinted again..
The idea obviously sold well enough for somebody at Penguin to decide that this was a good idea and the second million soon followed a couple of months later in September 1946 and this time the author featured was H.G. Wells.
After discussing other Penguin authors (including DH Lawrence) who enjoyed this demonstration of their successful careers (at least with Penguin), the collector (postng as bookramblings.blog) comes to Evelyn Waugh:
Next comes Evelyn Waugh whose ‘million’ came out in May 1951. This time there are five titles new to Penguin (821 to 825) with five reprints Decline and Fall (January 1937), Vile Bodies (April 1938), Black Mischief (November 1938), Put out More Flags (October 1943) and Scoop (March 1944). There’s a nice potted bibliography along with the list of books in the listing. I’ve always quite liked Evelyn Waugh although he does seem to be a lot less well known nowadays. I also like the fact that his first wife, although only for one year as she had another relationship with John Heygate at the time, was also called Evelyn, just imagine the confusion when guests called…
After two more detective series, the program seems to have ended with Agatha Christie in 1953, except for a partial reinstatement for Arnold Bennett who had six Penguin books republished. The entire article can be accessed at this site.
Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year from the Evelyn Waugh Society.
