Evelyn Waugh and Selina Hastings x 2

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

Forum Auctions has posted an early letter from Evelyn Waugh (sometime in 1929) relating to the writing of Vile Bodies. This is addressed to Lord Hastings and thanks him for the loan of a two-volume work about his ancestor Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. The full text of the letter is reproduced in a handwriting that is more legible than in those of later vintage. The context of the letter is explained by Waugh’s biographer Selina Hastings, whose father was the addressee:

Waugh was at the time writing Vile Bodies and wished to make a comic reference to their famous ancestor, to which end Lord Hastings loaned him a two volume biography.

She explains this more fully in her biography (p. 210):

Towards the end of [Vile Bodies]. Colonel Blount becomes involved in making a film about the life of the Methodist peeress, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and the two rivals for her love, [John] Wesley and [George] Whitefield (in one episode, Wesley in America is ‘rescued from Red Indians by Lady Huntingdon disguised as a cowboy.’) NOTE 5: Evelyn had gone to some trouble to find out about Lady Huntingdon, borrowing material from her direct descendent Viscount Hastings, heir to the then Earl of Huntingdon, who was a close friend of Alec’s. It is clear from the novel, however, that the use he made of this authentic material was slight.

Whether the earlier Selina could ever have claimed the surname “Hastings” (she married Theophilus Hastings, 9th Earl of Huntingdon but was Lady Selina Shirley in her own right) is beyond your correspondent’s competence with English aristocratic titles , but it makes a good headline. The letter is Lot 202 and will be auctioned on 30 March 2017, the same day as Waugh’s much publicized ear trumpet. The estimated price is £300 – 400.  

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Telegraph Makes Literary Tour of Stately Homes

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

In today’s Property section of the Daily Telegraph, there is a discussion of a tour of stately homes that have a literary connection. This is by Eleanor Doughty, known to this parish as a Waugh fan. She starts with a discussion of the 

45 houses to feature on the Historic Houses Association’s (HHA) literary trail, which launches next week. The collection – the theme of which was chosen to coincide with Visit England’s Year of Literary Heroes, itself chosen because 2017 is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death – will guide visitors around the country to houses of bookish importance.

After describing some of the highlights of the HHA scheme Doughty ends up at Madresfield Court in Worcestershire where Evelyn Waugh was a frequent visitor in the 1930s:

His first impression of Madresfield would have been romantic as he came along the drive, with its neo-gothic gables, brick chimneys and gargoyles. But this might not be the Brideshead of his readers’ imaginations; the house used in the acclaimed 1981 television series … was filmed at the grand baroque palace Castle Howard in Yorkshire, which, as stately homes go, could not differ more from Madresfield. 

After discussing the details of the chapel in Brideshead and the one at Madresfield as well as Waugh’s later recognition that he may have overdone his romantic descriptions in that novel, Doughty concludes with an interview of the present occupants of Madresfield:

Waugh’s chapel at Brideshead is “unmistakably the chapel in Madresfield”, says Lucy Chenevix-Trench, the house’s present owner. Rarely open to the public, it is “very much a home rather than a museum”, she says. The house, although large, “is not grand and imposing”, she adds. “It has no great ego, but is charismatic and intriguing.” Chenevix-Trench’s children are the 29th generation of the family to live at Madresfield, in a dynasty stretching back over 900 years. “Waugh used our family as a skeleton from which he created Brideshead. It is a pleasure for us that he has played a part in our history.”

In another separate but related article, the Telegraph online has a slide show of stately homes. This includes Lytham Hall said to be “the finest Georgian house in Lancashire.” But the description oddly seems to go a bit off the trail with this:

It is said that Evelyn Waugh based the character of Sebastian Flyte on Harry de Vere Clifton who was the last squire to own Lytham Hall…

Clifton was an erstwhile film producer in the 1930s who ran through his entire inheritance including Lytham Hall. He was four years younger than Waugh and, if they knew each other at Oxford, no one among their contemporaries or Waugh’s biographers seems to have noticed. The Wikipedia entry for Harry Clifton a/k/a Henry Talbot de Vere Clifton (1907-1979) mentions the connection with Waugh and Sebastian Flyte, citing only an internet site maintained by the Lytham Town Trust which promotes visits to Lytham Hall. That site offers no support for their statement. Waugh mentions having visited Lytham Hall once in 1935 and was hosted by Violet Clifton, who was Harry’s mother. There were several other of her children present, and Waugh’s letter to Katharine Asquith mentions them each specifically by name, but not Harry. Waugh was impressed by the house and notes: “Five hideous Catholic churches on estate.” A footnote by Mark Amory asserts: “An elder brother, Harry, knew Waugh at Oxford.” Again, no evidence is cited (Letters, p. 95). The family were apparently Roman Catholic, as witnessed by the numerous chapels and the fact that Harry’s parents were married in the Brompton Oratory, so that may lend some credibility to the Brideshead connection.

UPDATE (28 February 2017): The Malvern Gazette and other local papers in the Worcestershire area have also reported on the participation of Madresfield Court in the stately home visitation scheme and have added some Waugh-related information not covered in the Telegraph’s report:

Waugh also wrote Black Mischief, his third book, published in 1932, while staying at Madresfield as a guest. It is believed an old nursery was converted into a writing room for him…Peter Hughes of the Madresfield Estate said: “A lot of visitors come to Madresfield because of the Evelyn Waugh connection, more than for any other single reason. “Waugh never said Brideshead was based on Madresfield, but there are certainly a lot of similarities.”

Guided tours of Madresfield Court take place between March and September, but must be booked in advance.

UPDATE 2 (2 March 2017): The Blackpool Gazette has also reported on the impact of the literary trail in their area. They mention and quote from the letter Waugh wrote about his visit to Lytham Hall but don’t mention his lack of contact with Harry Clifton. They also include a discussion of literary associations with Stonyhurst but fail to mention Waugh’s connection with that estate, now a Roman Catholic public school. Waugh visited his Oxford friend Christopher Hollis several times in the early 1930s when Hollis was teaching there. Waugh spent much of his time there writing and lists Stonyhurst along with Chagford and Madresfield as the places where he wrote Black Mischief.

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Jonkers Issue Waugh Catalogue

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

Jonkers Books of Henley-on-Thames have issued a 70-page illustrated catalogue exclusively devoted to books and writings by Evelyn Waugh and his friends. Here’s a link to the online edition which is limited to books or other writings by Waugh or to which he contributed. What is probably the most interesting item in the internet list (not included in the printed catalogue) has already been sold. This is Fitzroy Maclean’s copy of the Brideshead Revisited pre-publication edition limited to 50 copies. As explained in the book’s description, when Waugh served under Maclean in WWII Yugoslavia, the two men took an instant dislike to each other :

…it would appear, however, that they found a means of tolerating one another and even developed a reserved respect for each other’s very different talents. Maclean allowed Waugh to publish his anti-Partisan (and thus anti-government policy) report on Catholicism in Croatia, Church and State in Liberated Croatia…Waugh, having completed the initial draft of Brideshead a month before leaving for Yugoslavia spent his spare hours correcting the proofs and was allowed by Maclean (and his friendship with Randolph Churchill) to use the diplomatic channels to return the corrected proofs to London for publication … This particular copy will have been presented in person, shortly before being demobilised in September 1945, doubtless as a mark of thanks for the part Maclean played in its publication.

In view of its having been sold, the asking price is now unavailable.

There remain some interesting association copies of books inscribed, for example,  to Graham Greene and Anthony Powell as well as a copy of Unconditional Surrender inscribed to Bill Deakin (“For Bill/Souvenir of Bari/from Evelyn/October 1961”). The entry for the book describes Waugh’s relationship with both Deakin and Maclean:

Bill Deakin was parachuted in to Yugoslavia in 1943 to make contact with Tito and his Partisans. The mission was soon taken over by Fitzroy Maclean, who set up a military air base on the Italian coastal town of Bari. It was in Bari that Waugh, along with Randolph Churchill, was stationed and where Waugh first met Deakin. Waugh seems to have taken an instant liking to Deakin, in the same way that he took an instant dislike to Maclean, and regarded Deakin as one of the unsung heroes of the Yugoslavian operation for which Maclean took much of the credit. Their friendship continued in peace time when Deakin became the first warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford and was knighted in 1975.

The asking prices for the remaining offers vary from £30.00 to £26,500.00. 

UPDATE (2 March 2017): The Jonkers catalogue entitled Evelyn Waugh and his Friends can now be viewed online in a PDF file. It may also be purchased directly from the bookseller. These items are available via this link.

 

 

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Waugh and Chesterton Lecture on YouTube

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

A video lecture on the theme of “G K Chesterton and Evelyn Waugh” is posted on YouTube. This was delivered at the 35th conference of the American Chesterton Society convened in 2016 at Slippery Rock State University in Pennsylvania. It was written and delivered by Joe Grabowski who graduated from Marquette University and received a PhD in Philosophy from the St Charles Borromeo Seminary. He currently works at the International Institute for Culture in Philadelphia. Links to several other papers from the conference on other topics will appear in a right-hand column when you load this one from YouTube. Chesterton was one of three British writers who converted to Roman Catholicism that Waugh included in his 1949 lectures sponsored by US Catholic colleges and universities. The other two were Ronald Knox and Graham Greene.

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El Pais Chronicles Brideshead TV Generation

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

A feature article in the Spanish language newspaper El Pais chronicles the generation of party goers inspired by the 1981 Granada TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited:

In his first scene, Sebastian appears vomiting through an open window. Margaret Thatcher had been living in Downing Street for two years and it was becoming clear she would be more than a head of government. It would be more like a climate or a way of life. Earning money or, better yet, having it accumulated from yesteryear, like Brideshead’s Flyte, was something worth celebrating in public. The series caught on with a disparate audience, but especially among those who understood the codes of that world, who knew, without the script to explain, that Michaelmas is what they call in Oxford the term that runs from October to December.

This is mainly the story of Dafydd Jones who made a photographic record of the phenomenon beginning in 1980s Oxford. This was shortly after Jones, an Old Wykehamist, had graduated from art school:

“Living in Oxford was in the right place,” recalls Jones. “I was not part of the high society, not even the University. I came from much further down the social ladder, but I started investigating.” He bought black-and-white reels, because they were cheaper, and he set about sneaking in on the New Sebastians’ parties , of people like today’s media chef Nigella Lawson, whose father had become Thatcher’s minister; or Hugh Grant, whom he photographed dressed as a pixie at a party of the secret society Piers Gaveston…

Jones entered his photographs a contest set by the Sunday Times relating to the revived Bright Young Things and, although he lost the contest, the ST published his photos and this led to a job with Tina Brown’s Tatler magazine:

During the next decade, the debutantes and the children of the lords met with him at every wedding, every charity evening and every dance at Annabel’s, the eternal nightclub of the aristocracy. He portrayed them in all their glory, with disjointed faces and nipples outside… 

But, as explained by writer Peter York (The Sloane Ranger Handbook), it couldn’t last forever:

When was the party over? York dates it to the early nineties, “when it started another more international style, more sophisticated and more politically correct. In addition, the culture of celebrity was installed … The most important thing was to lose the accent if one wanted to be taken seriously. If they went to the City to work for companies with Japanese or German owners, they needed to look like modern, responsible and global people. ” 

The story is illustrated with examples of Jones’ photographs in high quality digital reproductions. The translation is by Google with some editing.

UPDATE (25 February 2017): In a story in the New York Times “T-Magazine” dated 24 February 2017  by Alexander Fury entitled “In London, the Rise of Old-Fashioned Fashion”, the revival of the movement described above seems to have started:

The phrase …  “Young Fogies,” [was] arguably first coined in its contemporary form by Alan Watkins in The Spectator in 1984, though it is both ideologically and aesthetically related to Peter York’s “Sloane Ranger” of a decade earlier. Both terms designate a lifestyle — as well as a look — describing a set of political and social beliefs, as well as a hairstyle or a type of glasses (wire-rimmed, of course). For both Sloane Rangers and Young Fogies, that world outlook involves conservatism (with a small ‘c’) and lots of tradition, alongside tweeds and crĂȘpe-de-chine blouses. The original Young Fogies, though, were obsessed with the past, rather than class: they read Evelyn Waugh, and despised modern architecture. In short, they were classicists whose sartorial tastes veered towards the old-fashioned — just like the characters created by these Young Fogey designers today.

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Combe Florey Parish Council at Risk

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

The Parish Council of Combe Florey is at risk of dissolution for lack of interest. According to the Somerset County Gazette, there are only two council members remaining in their seats as a result of others having resigned. The Parish Council cannot act unless additional councilors can be found. To fill in the present gap, the Taunton Deane Borough Council is allowing the Combe Florey Parish Council to co-opt two of its own members in order to make up a quorum until new Parish Councilors can be appointed or elected, as the case may be.

It is not the Parish Council, however, that has been unable to act in the case of approving planning permission for repair of the Waugh Family grave sites adjacent to the Church of St Andrew in Combe Florey. See earlier post. That matter must be resolved by the Taunton Deane Borough Council’s planning authorities (Combe Florey parish apparently being a constituent part of that borough) or by the Archdiocese of Taunton, as the owners of the churchyard, or both. The Parish Council of Combe Florey is a civil agency independent of the church, which also has a “parish” made up of the church members, but that’s another story. 

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TLS Reviews Waugh Books

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

The latest TLS has a review of the two recently published books about Evelyn Waugh by Ann Pasternak Slater and Philip Eade. The review, entitled “Horrors of Waugh”,  is available to read on the internet. It is written by journalist Violet Hudson whose articles frequently appear in the Spectator and Standpoint magazines.

She begins with examples of Waugh’s seeming child neglect as described in Eade’s biography followed by the observation that his children seemed to love him notwithstanding this treatment. She sees an explanation in Eade’s book:

Eade’s fine biography does a good job of pinning down the particular puckish charisma that made Waugh so popular. A large part of this charm, of course, is his comic genius. Waugh is by far the funniest writer of his generation. Eade’s biography is peppered with humour; the letters, liberally quoted, are full of jokes and witty observations. Even when he was unhappy he managed to be funny. 

While Eade’s book concentrates on Waugh’s life, mentioning his works only sparingly as they are relevant, Slater concentrates on his works and uses them to illustrate his life:

A renowned Waugh scholar, Slater examines the novels in turn. Her work sheds light on how Waugh’s Catholicism influenced his work; her chapter on Brideshead Revisited is particularly strong…Yet one cannot help feeling that her admiration for his work clouds her judgement of his character. For Slater, Waugh is uncomplicatedly heroic, fighting not only for England in the war but “in defence of embattled Christendom”, as though he is a Crusader. She exonerates him utterly from the charge of snobbery which is often – and with a fair degree of justification – levelled against him, and which Eade is wise enough to keep his counsel on.

The review concludes:

Taken together, these two books admirably reinstate Waugh as the pre-eminent novelist of his era. His talent for deft characterization, mesmeric storytelling and constant originality is rightly celebrated by both writers. 

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Guardian Includes The Loved One in Top 10 Hollywood Novels

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

The Guardian in this week’s “Top 10” books column considers books about Hollywood. Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 novella The Loved One is among those selected by Tim Walker who has himself just finished his own contribution to the genre (Smoke Over Malibu). Here’s his entry for Waugh’s novel:

Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One (1948)

Minor English war poet Dennis Barlow moved to Hollywood to write a biopic of Shelley, but, with the film stuck in development hell, he now works as a crematorium technician at a pet cemetery called the Happier Hunting Ground. Waugh’s brief, bitter satire of California’s film and funeral industries was inspired by a trip he took to LA in 1947, when MGM was wooing him – without success – to agree to a screen adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.

The column also includes a still from the 1965 film adaptation showing Roddy McDowell who played a studio executive and John Gielgud who portrayed Sir Francis Hinsley. Other novels on the Guardian’s list include Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust, F Scott Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby Stories and Budd Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run.

Meanwhile, Waugh is cited by another paper in conjunction with foreign policy. The Australian has a story by Greg Sheridan regarding the success of Jordan’s policy in dealing with the Middle East refugee crisis:

As we turn our gaze to the Middle East this week, we should spare a thought for Jordan. In Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy the fearsome Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook gives his most important military advice: Never reinforce failure. The obverse, surely, is obviously true. Do reinforce success. And Jordan, in the seething terror and tragedy of refugees, war and extremism across the Middle East, is a success story.

 

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Paula Byrne to Appear at Highclere and Other Waugh News

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

Biographer Paula Byrne (author of Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead (2009)) will appear in a program entitled “Literature and Landscapes” to be held at Highclere Castle near Newbury, Berkshire, in May. The venue is better known as the setting for the TV series Downton Abbey, but there is also a Waugh connection. It is the home of the Earls of Carnarvon, and Laura Waugh’s father, Aubrey Herbert, was a younger son of the 4th Earl. His life is described in a book by the Waughs’ daughter Margaret Fitzherbert, The Man Who Was Greenmantle (1983). The family also has a villa in Portofino, Italy, which was named Altachiara, the Italian equivalent of Highclere. Evelyn Waugh was a frequent visitor at Altachiara and first met Laura on a visit there. There is little mention of any visits by Evelyn to Highclere, but he must have made some.  This connection is not stated in the promotional material for the lectures nor is it known whether Byrne intends mention it but she may be unable to resist the temptation to do so. 

In other news, controversial US commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has cited Waugh (also a controversialist in his day) in defense of some of his actions. Yiannopoulos is, among other things, a Roman Catholic and, according to a religious website:

A lot of people have a lot to say about Milo. I want to focus on something constructive. After a talk last year at UCSB, he was asked: “How do you reconcile being a Roman Catholic and a homosexual? I’ve never been able to understand that about you.” Milo responded to this question in a layered way that shocked me, precisely because the response was so adequate, the question so fully answered. … He began by saying that, the question itself exposes a level of ignorance both about Catholicism and about what it means to be gay. He quotes Evelyn Waugh who once said, “If you think I’m bad with God, imagine me without him”…

That’s more of a paraphrase than a quote, but it conveys the general meaning of Waugh’s statement. For a complete description of Milo’s own self-defense, here’s a link to the website. 

In the Fairbanks (Alaska) News-Miner a local librarian offers an article on lexicography. After a discussion of his attempts to avoid the use of the word “very”,  he lights on the subject of Roget’s thesaurus as his conclusion:

Fortunately, just before publishing the first edition of the thesaurus, Roget added an alphabetical appendix “thus enabling readers to use the thesaurus as a conventional book of synonyms, without necessarily having to delve into its complex philosophical underpinnings.” Like Roget, the new Fairbanks North Star Borough library catalog facilitates getting your head around huge amounts of information. For that matter, “facilitates” is another expression worth trotting out on occasion. As Evelyn Waugh noted, “one’s vocabulary needs constant watering or it will die.”

Finally, a website devoted to developing creative writing skills includes Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited as an example of the skillful use of a book’s setting to advance its story. Other examples offered include J K Rowling’s Hogwarts, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Dickens’ Victorian London, and C S Lewis’ Narnia.

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Favorite Second Novels

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Jeffrey Manley

The Royal Society of Literature is conducting a poll of UK residents to determine their favorite second novel. The competition is explained on the RSL’s website:

Second novels are a notorious challenge for writers. Whether their first novel was a triumph or a flop, the pressure is always on the follow-up. But what do readers make of second novels? Do we even know which of our favourite novels are second novels? We have decided to hold a public vote to raise literary awareness and discussion. We hope above all that the process will encourage people to read more novels.

Waugh’s Vile Bodies is among the books nominated for consideration, but the competition is stiff. Among other nominees are James Joyce’s Ulysses, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Lewis Carrolls’s Through the Looking Glass. Voting closes on 31 March and the winner will be announced on 5 April. Thanks to Dave Lull for sending us the link.

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