An essay by Naomi Milthorpe in the most recent edition of Script & Print: Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand discusses the provenance and dating of Evelyn Waugh's bookplates.
Unz.org provides free access to its online archive of periodicals, books, videos and films, including full runs of Horizon (1940-1949), Encounter (1953-1991), and many others.
The book-centered social website LibraryThing has announced that its project to make available online a catalog of Evelyn Waugh's library has been completed.
LibraryThing states that 2,752 books are in the finished catalog, but this number is considerably less than the 3,500 books said to exist in the Evelyn Waugh collection at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin. Comments are solicited from LibraryThing explaining how their EW cataloging team arrived at the number they did.
Update (Dec. 16): jburlinson, the person chiefly responsible for building the Evelyn Waugh library catalog, has responded to a question posed at LibraryThing about the book counts:
The 2,752 number represents the number of separate, individual titles. A number of Waugh's titles are multi-volume works, including "collected works" for many authors, such as Alexander Pope (9 volumes), Thomas Browne (6 volumes), Jonathan Swift (19 volumes), John Ruskin (11 volumes), many more.
The Guardian interview (Nov. 25, 2011) with Alec Waugh's son, Peter, paints a less than flattering picture of Evelyn Waugh as an uncle:
When he was nine, Peter was introduced to Evelyn. It is a vivid memory. His uncle sat behind an enormous desk in his library. "Bring him in," Evelyn called, and Peter was ushered into the room by Evelyn's wife, Laura. "Turn him round." Peter was spun round. "Take him away," Evelyn barked.
"Can you imagine an uncle saying that to you?" says Peter. "Talk about intimidation."
The terrified boy fell in love with his Aunt Laura. "I thought Evelyn Waugh was an ogre and I was going to rescue her," he says. "I did see him being very funny, but Evelyn was cruel. My sister once asked about the pre-Raphaelites and he said, 'Do you know anything about painting?' and she was only a young girl and didn't, and he said, 'Well, I won't bother then.'"
From the North Wales Weekly News (Nov. 10, 2011):
Plas Dulas, which dates back to the 1780s, will make way for a housing development following a unanimous decision by Conwy County Council planners yesterday.
Developer Alex Davies was granted permission to build 15 detached two storey buildings and a children’s play area on the site.
The demolition of Plas Dulas had been threatened for many months, but this decision appears to be final and to signal the end of the effort by some heritage organizations to preserve the property.
Plas Dulas (known as Arnold House when Evelyn Waugh taught there in the 1920s) inspired Llanabba Castle in Decline and Fall.
A photographic tour of the property taken in Feb. 2011 can be viewed here.
Update (Dec. 14th): Commenter Duncan McLaren offers the following correction: "Evelyn Waugh did have a connection with Plas Dulas in 1925. But Arnold House, the much more significant building in his biography, where Waugh taught and lodged, is located further up the hill of Llanddulas."
The EWS thanks Mr. Ric Cooper for the following delightful anecdote, which arrived by email:
My father, Giles Cooper, dramatised Sword of Honour for BBC television in 1966. Before the project could be confirmed, he and his long-time collaborator Donald McWhinnie were summoned to meet Evelyn Waugh at the Dorchester, where the author was staying early that year. McWhinnie was an enormously experienced radio and TV director, having worked closely with most of the great dramatists of the day, including Samuel Beckett, Jean Anouilh and Harold Pinter.
The mood of the interview—for such it definitely was—began awkwardly, but brightened when Waugh enquired where each had gone to school, despite them being in their late forties. While McWhinnie had attended a grammar school in Lancashire, my father had been at Lancing, some 15 years after Waugh himself. Drinks appeared and an increasingly jolly session ensued, until it was time to leave.
In the hallway of Waugh’s suite was a large floral display of red and white roses. He plucked one of each from the vase, snapped off the stems, and placed the white bloom in McWhinnie’s buttonhole and the red one in my father’s, with the mischievous comment, "Innocence….and experience."
Comedian Russell Kane, who chose The Life and Novels of Evelyn Waugh as his special subject, won BBC Television's Children In Need Mastermind Special 2011, broadcast on BBC2 on Nov. 11th. He scored an unusually high 18 out of 19 on his special subject questions, and 11 out of 17 (four incorrect answers and two passes) in the general knowledge section.
A recording of the program is currently available on YouTube. Mr. Kane's Evelyn Waugh questions begin at 07:33, and his general knowledge questions at 24:14.
Derek Granger, producer and (something that was unknown until recently) one of the writers of the highly regarded 1981 Granada Television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, will be appearing with cast members at the Rayne Theatre (Chickenshed) in Southgate, London on Thurs. Oct. 27th at 8:00 p.m.
From the theatre's website:
We present a light-hearted evening of TV nostalgia with Derek Granger, producer and writer of Brideshead Revisited. The evening will include unseen footage and outtakes as well as some of Derek’s celebrity friends from the programme.
North London Today has a story about the event.
Mr. Granger shared his Brideshead reminiscences and some video clips with appreciative members of the Evelyn Waugh Society at the third Evelyn Waugh Conference held in the UK in August.
Beautiful Books, which this autumn was to have published Duncan McLaren's Evelyn!: Rhapsody for an Obsessive Love, has entered administration. A new publisher is being sought. Prospective readers of the book—a group that surely includes those who were lucky enough to attend Duncan's spellbinding Evelyn! presentation at the recent Evelyn Waugh Society conference in England—should keep an eye on Duncan's website for developments.
The 2011 Bewdley Festival, held in Bewdley, Worcestershire, features a performance of Dearest Nancy, Darling Evelyn, a dramatization of the correspondence between Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. The performance (Oct. 9) stars Fenella Fielding, Nigel Anthony, and Nickolas Grace.
A collection of the Waugh/Mitford correspondence, The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh
