Category Archives: Decline and Fall

Roundup: Laura Waugh’s Lent

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

–In the Guardian, William Keegan compares the Brexit chaos to Waugh’s Decline and Fall: In order to switch off from Brexit in the evenings, your correspondent has taken to re-reading his favourite novels. Yet there is no escape! At the … Continue reading →

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Early March Roundup

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

–Laura Freeman writing in the Daily Telegraph (27 February) surveys children’s books and discovers that one of her favorites has been rated as having a “really high difficulty level.” This is Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men series and she sees the … Continue reading →

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Evelyn Waugh, Walter Gropius and Prof Otto Silenus

Posted on February 28, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

Fiona MacCarthy, biographer and art historian, has written a biography of architect Walter Gropius. At least two reviewers have noted his contribution to the character of Prof Otto Silenus in Waugh’s debut novel Decline and Fall. Novelist Philip Hensher, writing … Continue reading →

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Compton Mackenzie Reconsidered

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

In the wake of the recent New Statesman essay seeking to revive an interest in JB Priestley, the latest New Criterion has published one seeking to create a renewed interest in another neglected novelist of the same period. This is … Continue reading →

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Autograph Post Card Sold on E-bay

Posted on February 18, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

A 1954 handwritten but unsigned post card from Evelyn Waugh to Gerald Matthews (described as a sports journalist) was recently sold on E-bay. The post card is postmarked 2 July 1954 and reads: “Chokey was a minor character who had … Continue reading →

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Groundhog Day Roundup

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

–Columnist John Derbyshire has posted a story in his “Derb’s January Diary” column on the anti-immigrant website Vdare that may start another debate like U/Non-U pronunciation or George and Ira Gershwin’s line “You say tomato, and I say tomahto”. Derbyshire, … Continue reading →

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Evening Standard’s Waugh Twofer

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

The Evening Standard reviews a book by David Kynaston and Francis Green of UCL entitled Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private Education Problem. According to the review by Ann McElvoy: What interests these two centre-Left writers is the degree of insulation that … Continue reading →

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Oxford College Announces Waugh Thesis

Posted on January 27, 2019 by Jeffrey Manley

Linacre College, Oxford has announced a DPhil thesis by one of its students. The title is “Evelyn Waugh: Travel Writing and Politics” and its author is Roger Irwin, a postgraduate student. The college is a postwar foundation, and its students … Continue reading →

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Boxing Day Roundup

Posted on December 26, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

–The Guardian in its “Top Tens” books column this week features “books on booze”. The selection by Henry Jeffreys is explained as “not a collection of books about drunkenness or alcoholism, though both feature. Rather, it is a celebration of those … Continue reading →

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A Tale of Two Adaptations

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

The popular culture criticism website PopMatters.com has reposted a 2006 review of the 1965 film adaptation of Waugh’s novel The Loved One. This review by Bill Gibon focuses more on the director Tony Richardson’s version than on Waugh’s story. He … Continue reading →

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