Author Archives: Jeffrey Manley

Evelyn Waugh in Country Life

Country Life magazine has published a list of 60 things that make Britain great. No. 43 is the public school: Ever since William of Wykeham set up his college for poor scholars in Winchester more than 600 years ago, these … Continue reading

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Spectator Competition

The Spectator‘s correspondent Lucy Vickery has set a competition for writing a short message in the style of one of four writers suggested by Michael Gove, Secretary of State, formerly for Education and now for Justice, as models for civil servants. … Continue reading

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Express TV Critic Rewatches Brideshead

The 1980s TV series of Brideshead Revisited was recently rebroadcast by ITV Encore and is still available on an online “catch up” site which may require a subscription fee and UK internet connection. The Sunday Express TV critic, David Stephenson, chose … Continue reading

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Waugh at the Ashes

Waugh gets quoted in the Guardian’s report of the opening ceremony of the Ashes Test Cricket Match in Cardiff. The reporter (Barney Ronay) is complaining about the lengthy opening ceremony which kicked off with a rain-sodden male-voice choir singing not one, not two … Continue reading

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Max and Diana

Many of our readers will be familiar with the story of how Waugh’s friend Diana Mosley (nee Mitford) and her husband Sir Oswald Mosley (leader of the British Fascist party) were imprisoned in 1940. Diana had, a few weeks before entering prison, given … Continue reading

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Waugh in Wonderland

In a recent New Yorker article, critic-at-large Anthony Lane, author of the essay on Waugh in the Cambridge Companion to English Novelists (2009), adds his own thoughts to the outpouring of words marking the bicentenary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures … Continue reading

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The Pleasure of Antonia Fraser

In this week’s TLS there is a review of a collection of essays edited by Antonia Fraser and entitled The Pleasure of Reading.  This is a reprint of a book first published in 1992 to mark the bicentenary of the W.H. Smith … Continue reading

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Mrs. Melrose Ape in China

The South China Morning Post recently ran a story by Jason Wordie about the activities in China of the American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson . While best known for her Angelus Temple of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Los Angeles, … Continue reading

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Crouchbackian Undercurrents Seen in Australian Novel

A recent Australian novel tells the story of a soldier who suffered through the British evacuation of Crete. This is Archipelago of Souls by Gregory Day. It is reviewed by a  writer identified only by his/her initials (“AF”) in The Saturday … Continue reading

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Waugh and the Mitfords

A brief article by your correspondent about Waugh and the Mitford sisters has been posted on The Mitford Society’s internet site. It relates to the sisters Nancy, Diana and Deborah. The article originally appeared in The Mitford Society Annual, volume … Continue reading

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