EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES

Volume 29, Number 3 Winter, 1995

THE CHARACTER OF CORDELIA IN BRIDESHEAD REVISITED By John W. Osborne (Rutgers University)

Cordelia is wise about religious matters as Cara is knowing about worldly affairs. Cordelia is the only person who understands Sebastian, and her love for her brother is demonstrated throughout the novel. This love is deep, and she shames Ryder when she speaks of their joint love for Sebastian in the present tense, long after Ryder ceased to care deeply about his friend (p. 308). Years before, Ryder's last sight of Sebastian was when he left the sick man in squalid circumstances in North Africa, noting that nothing more could be done. But Cordelia visits Sebastian in the late 1930's and grasps the fact that while he was lost to his ancestral home he had found a curious peace as a hanger on in a religious community. Cordelia notes that neither she nor her brother, Sebastian, fit into either the secular world or a monastic community (her spell in a convent did not work out) (p. 308). In her soliloquy she tells a confused Ryder that Sebastian is holy and close to God. The still secular Ryder immediately thinks of ''the joyful youth with the Teddy-bear under the flowering chestnuts," and confesses that he never anticipated Sebastian's fate (p. 309). The religious outlook of Cordelia had always been a mystery to Ryder. Both he and Julia referred to Cordelia as odd (p. 221 and p. 300). Ryder finally changes his mind as Cordelia's wisdom penetrates his skepticism (p. 309). The scene ends with Cordelia getting the last word by describing the affair of Ryder and Julia as "thwarted passion." The loving Cordelia will remain single, spending her (in Ryder's words) "burning love" on good works and not on her children. She does not even get to care for Beryl's children. Her extraordinary compassion leads her to become a nurse in the Spanish Civil War, and also to understand the feeling of Jews toward their temple. The service in Spain is significant since Cordelia has told Ryder that people can't hate God (p. 221). Yet she volunteered to serve in Spain, where at least half the people seemed to hate God. Of course, her faith was not damaged by this experience. The end of the book finds her serving in Palestine during World War II. Waugh is skillful in showing us the childish goodness of Cordelia in the early and middle parts of the book. Cordelia is adorable, though her happy religious chatter is a mystery to Ryder. Her bubbly enthusiasm and habit of linking seemingly disparate trains of thought are characteristics of childhood. The letter to Ryder (p. 170) is perfectly expressed. It is also appropriate that she visits Nanny Hawkins as soon as she returns from Spain. But it is clear that Sebastian is the main person in her life. On page 220, the fifteen year old Cordelia informs Ryder that while Lord March main, Sebastian and Julia have left the faith, God will not let them go for long. Citing the Father Brown story which Lady Marchmain read out loud Cordelia says that a person may wander to the ends of the earth and still be brought back with a twitch upon an invisible line. Ryder makes no response, probably thinking this is another example of "convent chatter." This conversation, which takes place at dinner in the Ritz Hotel in London, ends with Ryder's unspoken bravado assertion that he was a man of the worldly Renaissance, with "my finger in the great, succulent pie of creation" (p. 222). For Waugh's judgment of the two points of view the reader of the book has only to glance at the next page, which is not part of the narrative, but says only "Book II, A Twitch Upon The Thread," which is a reference to the Father Brown story which Lady Marchmain had once read aloud. Ryder eventually learns that the world which he sought to master does not exist, but he is still a religious skeptic. Finally, Cordelia, who has just returned from Spain, instructs the much older but still obtuse Ryder about things which have eluded his understanding. While Sebastian is, next to God, Cordelia's great love, she is instrumental in helping to prepare Ryder for conversion. This is done over a period of many years. First her little girl prattle about religion both astonishes and amuses the agnostic Ryder, but finally her soliloquy (pp 303-309) -the longest passage in the book - moves him. Cordelia's moving soliloquy is a contrast with that of Anthony Blanche. - 2-

That evening a sober Ryder recognizes that Julia may have a purpose in life other than to be attractive to men, or even a purpose greater than her relationship with him. This is followed by the image of an avalanche crushing the arctic hut. Cordelia had made the first penetration of Ryder's hitherto invincible armor of disbelief and prepared the way for what was to follow. These silent reflections of Ryder on pages 310-311 are very important to his future conversion, and they owe everything to Cordelia. Service to others was Cordelia's purpose in life, and perhaps the greatest example of this was her preparing the way for Ryder to be brought to God.

EVELYN WAUGH'S COPY OF THE WORKS OF MR. ALEXANDER POPE (1717, 1735) By Thomas Jemielity (University of Notre Dame) In Memoriam Anton C. Masin

Congratulating Douglas Woodruff on his fiftieth birthdayi 8 May 1947, Evelyn Waugh writes:" ... here is a birthday present Maurice gave to Venetia [Montagu], from her as wedding present to Randolph [Churchill], bought from him by me at the break up of his domestic iiie, 2 now to you-a varied history. Nours I Evelyn[.]" Mark Amory's edition of the Letters, however, doesn't identify Waugh's gift. In his diaries, Waugh notes only, for the same day: "Douglas Woodruff's 50th birthday dinner. I expected a grim evening but it was quite agreeable."3 A serendipity in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame, home of a fine collection of first, early, and important editions of Evelyn Waugh, proves that Waugh's gift to Douglas Woodruff was the two-volume set of The Works of Mr Alexander Pope, (Volume 1: London: Bernard Lintot, 1717; Volume II: London: Lawton Gilliver, 1735). As part of research on Pope's Punciad, I had occasion to check Notre Dame's copy of the 1735 Works for any further revisions in the poem. I had no good reason, of course, to check the 1717 first volume. But if Miss Mouse saw no ghosts at the Anchorage House party thrown by the Duke and Duchess of Stayle, was it a ghost from Stinkers who urged me to look at the volume anyhow, no Punciad notwithstanding? As I turned to the flyleaf, there it was: "For Douglas, on his 50th birthday I from I Evelyn /1947." The "Evelyn" was unmistakable. 4 Laura Fuderer, Rare Books Librarian, kindly made available several autographed titles by Waugh which confirmed the identification. A problem, however, immediately presented itself. Both volumes are graced by a bookplate, designed by Hilaire Belloc, for the library of Maurice Baring. Might the inscription at the top center right ("Venice I from I Maurice-/ Xmas -1924: -) have been Baring's? Mark Amory's index to the letters 5 clearly identifies the Maurice in this case as Maurice Bowra. A second serendipity came into play. A Jesuit friend, Fr. Alvaro Ribeiro, was spending the summer at Oxford. In a phone conversation he suggested sending him faxed copies of the "Maurice" signature which he would pass on to Clifford Davies, Tutor for Graduates at Wadham College and familiar with Bowra's signature. For purposes of comparison, Laura Fuderer added several copies of Baring's signature from the Notre Dame collection. Although Davies had no specimens of Bowra's hand from the '20s, our facsimile struck him as "very similar.'~ In addition, he mentioned that Maurice Bowra did visit Venice in the twenties and that he wasa friend of the Asquiths, which would explain the Venetia Montagu connection. So Amory's identification of this Maurice as Bowra seems correct. One question, of course, remains: when did this set pass into Maruice Baring's hands? Waugh's account of the set does not allow for any date after 1924. The time of Bowra's ownership of the Pope poses a problem I cannot resolve. "A varied history," indeed. Even more varied, however, are the contents of Volume II, because a sizable part of the volume includes near a dozen pieces published after 1735.6With minor variations, Volume II should contain the Essay on Man; the Epistles to Several Persons·7 four Imitations, two of Horace (Satires, II, i and ii) and two of John Donne's Satires II and IV. The Epitaphs are then followed by the Punciad in Three Books, except that for the 1735 edition Pope transfers the many footnotes to the section immediately following the text. The Newberry Library's copy of Volume II, for example, conforms to this pattern. Griffith attributes "irregularities in signatures and pagination" to two causes: the use of remainders and new sheets for this volume, and the expected publication in 1736 of another edition of Pope's works. 8 -3-

But neither explanation resolves the striking irregularities in the Waugh copy, the presence of those many items published after 1735 and the missing Imitations of the two satires by Horace and the two by Donne. The additional material begins immediately after the so-called Ethic Epistles, Book Two. The Waugh copy then offers the following: The Universal Prayer (1738\ Dialogue I and II (1738); imitations of four Horatian Epistles, I, i and I, vi (1738) and II, i and ii (1737); the First Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace (1737); and Sober Advice from Horace (i.e., Satires, I, ii, [1734]). This collection forms four separately paginated sections in Waugh's Volume II. The volume than moves on to the Epitaphs and to a prose piece, separately paginated and wrongly attributed to Pope: The Character of Katharine, Late Puchess of Buckinghamshire (1746). Contents apparently return to normal with the separately paginated ouncjad in Three Books, At this point, a real rarity appears. Whoever decided to bind these volumes, and they were clearly bound together in the eighteenth century, adds after the third book of the Dunciad, the New Dunciad of 1742, that is, the separately published fourth book, with its footnote apparatus at the bottom of each page. Because Pope was to publish the revised, expanded Greater . Punciad in 1743, continued publication of this separate fourth book was made superfluous. In its rarest form, the New Punciad of 1742 includes a frontispiece which, alas, is not in Waugh's copy. 10 In fact, pages i-vi are missing. Waugh's copy starts with ''The Argument" on (unnumbered} pages vii-viii. When Book IV ends, the Waugh copy returns to the pagination of the three-book version and resumes with the prolegomena and notes Pope shifted to the end of his 1735 edition of the poem. The owner who had these volumes bound clearly sought to make Volume II as up-to-date as possible. But why did he not include the Horace and Donne Imitations standard in the 1735 editions of the second volume? Notre Dame's acquisition of this set poses no mystery, however. Shortly after Douglas Wood ruffs death in March 1978, Msgr. John Tracy Ellis made university president Father Theodore Hesburgh aware of Woodruff's 12,500-volume library that Ellis assumed his widow would seek to dispose of. An examination of the library made at Father Hesburgh's urging revealed that it contained volumes of history, rare books from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, books of English literature with particular strength in Milton, and much twentieth-century English Catholic material, particularly in Chesterton and Belloc. Such an acquisition would be a logical, appropriate, and substantial comple­ ment to the university's John Bennett Shaw collection, a major donation in the 1960's of first and important editions of British and American writers, like T.S. Eliot and, of course, Evelyn Waugh. A Notre Dame faculty member at Oxford that summer, and scheduled to officiate at a wedding but a few miles from the Woodruff home, made inquiries for the university and, in fact, a preliminary check of the library between the wedding and the reception! He urged every effort to secure the library for Notre Dame. Father Hesburgh concurred. Mrs. Woodruff secured a release from Sotheby's, and not long after a forty-foot container arrived in Chicago destined for the Notre Dame Libraries. Clearly, one of the rare sets in the library was Evelyn Waugh's copy of Alexander Pope's Works (1717, 1735}, presented to Douglas Woodruff in May 1947. Readers of the Eyelyn Waugh Newsletter probably know that in 1982 Anton C. Masin, Rare Books Librarian at the university, put together an exhibit of Evelyn Waugh for which he prepared a descriptive 11 catalog. Robert Murray Davis called it "a solid accomplishment." During his tenure, Anton Masin combined a professional's responsibility and skill with a book lover's enthusiasm and personal dedication. His particular concern over the years was cataloguing the John Bennett Shaw collection and bringing its treasures to the attention of the public in exhibit after exhibit. The most significant consequence of this effort was the Evelyn Waugh exhibit in 1982. Anton Masin died at 57 on 14 November 1993, after a near year-long bout with cancer. I'm sure he would have been delighted to know that one of the treasures in the University of Notre Dame's rare books collection is Evelyn Waugh's copy.of The Works of Mr, Alexander Pope (1717, 1735). This brief note is dedicated to his memory. Requiescat in pace.

Notes 1 So identified by Mark Amory in The Letters of Evelyn waugh (New Haven and New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1980), p. 249. Hereafter Amory. - 4-

2 Waugh's information dates his acquisition of this set from shortly after World War. According to Michael Davie, Randolph Churchill divorced Pamela Digby in 1946. She was later to marry W. Averell Harriman. See The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie (Boston and Toronto: Little Brown and Co., 1976), p. 792. 3 l.bi.d..' p. 678. 4 Selina Hastings mentions how "most of [J. F. Roxburgh's) pupils [at Lancing] attempted an imitation" of "his distinctive hand," and that Waugh's "Greek 'e's, for example, were directly descended from those of his old schoolmaster." See Evelyn Waugh· A Biography (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 59, n. 8, and p. 59. 5 The index for the letters identifies the Maurice of p. 249 as Maurice Bowra. See Amory, p. 654. 6 Volume I poses no bibliographical challenges. It contains all Pope wished to include as his Works in 1717. My source for the bibliographical information is Reginald Harvey Griffith, Alexander Pope· A Bibliography (2 vols.), London: The Holland Press, 1962. For Griffith's analysis of the 1735 editions of Volume II, see II, 280-290. Hereafter Griffith. 7 Pope titles these first two items the Ethic Epistles Book One and Book Two. The later titled Epistles to Several Persons (or Moral Essays) includes here To Addison, To Robert Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (not now attributed to Pope), and To Arbuthnot. 8 See Griffith, II, 282. 9 I.e., date of publication. 10 The information about the particular rarity of the New Dunciad of 1742 with its frontispiece comes to me from Mr. Robert Barry, Jr., of C.A. Stonehill, Inc., of New Haven. 11 See his review of Anton C. Masin, Catalogue of an Exhibit Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) Novelist and Satirist May-August 1982, intra. Thomas Jemielity (South Bend, Indiana: And Books, 1982), in Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, 17, no. 2 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 8-9.

TEXTUAL CHANGES INVOLVING LORD KILBANNOCK By Paul A. Doyle

Guy Crouchback first met the Scottish peer, Lord ian Kilbannock, when the latter had once visited Kenya. Near the beginning of Men at Arm~, Guy again sees ian in a London club. Kilbannock "had lately written a racing column" (MA p. 26), but is now wearing an Air Force uniform. In the parallel passage in the Sword of Honor trilogy, Kilbannock "had lately written a gossip column" (SQ!i p. 30). In Officers and Gentlemen Kilbannock is called a "former sporting-journalisf' (p. 3), while in SQti he is a "former journalisf' (p. 265). Although the position of gossip columnist is not a top-level rank in the profession of journalism, it would certainly be a step above a "racing" correspondent. Lords Van burgh and Balcairn in Vile Bodjes served as gossip columnists for English newspapers. London papers liked to employ impecunious peers to add prestige to their society gossip columns, and such noblemen would have more connections and possibilities moving about in high society circles to gather news and scandal. It will be remembered too that Patrick Balfour, Lord Kinross, a friend of Waugh's, was a successful gossip columnist. Professor Donald Greene gives the most logical explanation for Waugh altering the text in order to promote Kilbannock's journalistic rank when he responded to my observation of this textural change: "[Waugh] came to recognize that writing a racing column was a bit too low for even a junior baron like Kilbannock."2 In Officers and Gentlemen Kilbannock, while speaking with Guy Crouchback, utters a statement which is not elaborated upon: "I've been pretty red ever since the Spanish war'' (p. 130). This is a comment ian made in reference to the alleged "democratic side" of his character. Referring to the American journalists whom he occasionally briefs and to whom he must in some circumstances refuse information, I an claims to be a man of the people. Guy satirically responds that he would like to see the democratic side of Kilbannock's character. In the parallel passage in the trilogy, the sentence about lan being a Communist is omitted, and so is Guy's sarcastic retort about Kilbannock's democratic side (SQJ:l, p. 373). -5-

Throughout the three individual novels, as well as in the trilogy, Lord Kilbannock is not presented in a particularly favorable light. He is censured for using the war as a means of personal advancement and is not interested in getting involved in real military combat. He is not seeking a heroic medal; rather he wants ''to be known as one of the soft-faced men who did well out of the war'' .MA, p. 27). As the war progresses and finally approaches its conclusion, he is interested in building toward a successful post-war journalistic career. When he ultimately arrives in Yugoslavia, he does not want to send "spot news," but rather he wishes to write "a series of articles." We are informed that "He intended to establish himself now and for the future as a political commentator, of the kind who had enjoyed such prestige in the late thirties" (&.6., p. 274). On a favorable note, ian's bravery in Officers and Gentlemen will be remembered when he was assigned as press officer to accompany Trimmer on "Operation Popgun", a trip to an uninhabited island near Jersey on which was an unused lighthouse. The mission was designed for publicity propaganda purposes in order to raise civilian morale and to impress the American public through supportive press releases. By error, Trimmer's raiding party lands on part of the German-occupied coast of France. Trimmer proves incompetent and cowardly, but ian's steadiness and the abilities of the patrol rescue the mission from disaster. Kilbannock then writes an impressive but distorted press release which makes Trimmer a national hero. It is further interesting to observe that in a conversation with his wife, Kerstie, regarding Guy's willingness to marry the pregnant Virginia, I an emphasizes practical aspects which balance with Guy's more idealistic and spiritual reflections and motives. Why did Waugh in the Sword of Honour trilogy omit the reference to Kilbannock being a Communist? Perhaps Waugh felt that too many Reds or Red sympathizers appear, especially in the later part of the novel. Sir Ralph Brompton, Frank de Souza, and Gilpin come immediately to mind. More likely, Waugh realized, upon reflection, that Kilbannock was too self-centered and too pragmatic to be an ideologue. He was too focused on personal gain to be beclouded with theory and utopianism. Waugh obviously does not present Kilbannock as an admirable figure, but these improved textural changes in SQJi make him less negative and more consistent with the type of character he really is.

Notes 1 All references to the individual novels and to the recession are to the Little, Brown hard cover editions - MA (1952), 00 (1955), E.B. (1961), and SQti (1966). 2 Personal correspondence with Donald Greene, March 31, 1990.

BOOK REVIEWS:

Selina Hastings. Evelyn Waugh: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. 724 pp. $40.00 Reviewed by John Howard Wilson, Dakota Wesleyan University.

Comparisons are odious, as nanny says in A Handful of Dust, but they are probably inevitable in Waugh biography. Selina Hastings invites comparison, characterizing Christopher Sykes's biography as a "memoir," Martin Stannard's as an "academic biography, " and her own as a "more general account." Her terms are slippery, since Sykes is still in print after twenty years, and since Stannard's first volume appeared on best-seller lists in the United States. Hastings wants to convey "what it was like to know Evelyn Waugh, even something of what it was like to be Evelyn Waugh" (ix), doing little to distinguish her purpose from those of her predecessors. If asked to describe Hastings's biography with one adjective, I would settle on "social." Lady Selina Hastings is, as Humphrey Carpenter observed in the Sunday Tjmes, a biographer from Waugh's "own social milieu, or at least the milieu into which he managed to elevate himself." Hastings's status is both an advantage and a disadvantage. She has interviewed many of Waugh's friends, acquaintances, and heirs, and she has inspected private collections of papers and photographs. Familiar with aristocratic eccentricity, Hastings reports Waugh's behavior without the tedious judgments of Sykes - 6-

and Stannard. Hastings cares about the people in Waugh's life, and her biography is the best available introduction to them. Hastings's knowledge is formidable, but often it centers on the wrong people, as when a reviewer notices all members of the supporting cast and neglects the leading actor. Does anyone care to know that Hazel Lavery "favoured picture hats, paste jewelry, ostrich-feather fans and theatrical costumes of black and purple" (245)? Sometimes detail surrounds places, such as "Aidwick, near Bognar Regis in Sussex, where the Coopers had put at [Waugh's] disposal West House, a small Regency villa divided only by a walled garden from the beach" (289). Irrelevant facts are the biographical equivalent of "colour stuff," derided in Scoop. People and places interest Hastings, but many readers might prefer more extensive consideration of Waugh's thoughts, actions, and motives. It is his biography. The early chapters are the best, covering Waugh's childhood, education, and entrance into society. Hastings draws upon seldom-cited sources, including the diaries of Waugh's parents and the letters of Waugh's friends and lovers. Though they are fascinating, these sources tend to confirm what was already known about Waugh. The perspectives are also tangential, touching upon Waugh without penetrating his consciousness. Waugh's thoughts are preserved in his diaries and letters. Hastings often refers to both, but her points tend to conclude with quotations from someone other than Waugh himself. Waugh's diaries and letters have been published for years, but they are both voluminous, full of opinion and conjecture, yet to be exploited by biographers. Waugh's novels are ev€)n more important products of his thinking. Hastings provides dull summaries of plots and simplistic connections between life and fiction. A Handful of Dust is said to be "rooted in Waugh's rage at the annihiliation of his own happiness by Evelyn Gardner'' (307). It may well be, and Hastings is hardly the first to say so; still, she might have been a bit more imaginative, perhaps asking why the_ rage took four years to come out. Hastings implies that She-Evelyn inspired Brenda Last, forgetting another faithless heroine, Margot Beste-Chetwynde, created long before Waugh's divorce. The second half is a disappointment. As she moves into Waugh's experiences during the Second World War, Hastings seems to lose interest: transitions grow scarce, research becomes conventional, and quotations gravitate into blocks. In Australia's Weekend Reyjew, Donat Gallagher noted that Waugh's last fifteen years are "crammed into 80 pages of indifferent summary." Little is said about the war trilogy, even less about Waugh's opposition to change in the Roman Catholic Church. Hastings rushed for some reason, but she needed to spend at least one more year working on the end of Waugh's life. Hastings makes mistakes too. The Prince of Wales in The Scarlet Woman is supposed to make "homosexual advances to the Pope" (118). In the film, the two characters never even meet, the Prince resisting the Dean of Balliol while the Pope fastens upon a middle-aged female played by Alec Waugh. Gallagher has identified other inaccuracies, involving Waugh's escape from Crete in 1941 and his actions for libel in the 1950s. The only consolation is that Hastings's errors seem slight when compared to the misrepresentations of Sykes and Stannard. Equally startling are some comments on Waugh's writing. Hastings seems to think that Waugh erred whenever he wrote about anything other than English lords and ladies. Much of Black Mischief takes place in Azania, "outside Evelyn's familiar territory," the African setting "very much less effective than the scenes set in London among his own kind" (263). Hastings is entitled to her opinion, but most of the novels (and all of the travel books) venture out of England. Waugh chose to visit remote places and write about them, and Hastings has missed an important part of his aesthetic. Hastings also underestimates Waugh's journalism, invariably accepting editors' abuse and ignoring the articles' style, clarity, and wit. We are still waiting for the ideal biography of Evelyn Waugh, but Hastings's version is well worth reading. The first half is promising, the second predictable.

Terence Greenidge. Evelyn Waugh in Letters. Ed. Charles Linck. Commerce, TX75429: Cow Hill Press, Box 3002, 1994. 187 pp. $25.00. Reviewed by John Howard Wilson, Dakota Wesleyan University. - 7-

Entirely unpretentious, Linck's edition of Greenidge's letters is one of the most enjoyable books yet written about Waugh. Greenidge is consistently interesting and informative, his observations all the more valuable because they are often unconventional. During research for this dissertation in the early 1960s, Linck tried writing to Waugh and his friends. many were "noncommittal" (xiv), but Greenidge was enthusiastic, and he and Linck corresponded for more than seven years. Greenidge had known Waugh for forty years, and his memories constitute an important account of Waugh's life. Linck published without footnotes, but the letters are easy to follow. Greenidge was a good writer, and he was trying to explain England to an American. As an actor, Greenidge liked Arthur Waugh, and many anecdotes involve Evelyn's theatrical father. Greenidge also gives interesting perspectives on Catherine, Evelyn's elusive mother. Other insights center on Waugh's characters. Greenidge claims that Sebastian Flyte is "in the main Hugh Lygon" (16), though almost everyone else has seen the character as a version of Alastair Graham. Turning to Waugh's Catholicism and aristocratic friends, Greenidge is even more subversive: both are evidence of "insanity" (142). Though he never accepted Waugh's beliefs, Greenidge did not stop "liking and/or enjoying him" (54). Greenidge makes many suggestions for further reading, and he reproduces notes from Waugh himself. His own letters stopped in 1969, apparently because Greenidge died, bankrupt, in a mental hospital. He had preserved several films shot at Oxford in the 1920s, and Waugh had appeared in at least three of them. Having already obtained The Scarlet Woman, Linck tried to retrieve the others, but the receivers couldn't find them. Do these films still exist? Perhaps someone in England could investigate. Linck's edition includes a foreword by R.M. Davis, a preface by the editor, and appendices of other letters about Waugh. Copies of Evelyn Waugh in Letters can be ordered from the editor at Box 3002, Commerce, TX 75429.

Great Writers of tbe Eng!isb Language· Satirists and Humorists· Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll. Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1987, 1989, 1991. "Evelyn Waugh," pp. 53-76. No price given. Reviewed by Robert Murray Davis, University of Oklahoma.

The twenty-four page illustrated essay on Waugh in this multiple-volume reference work is far better than one might expect from a popular reference work, especially in the six pages on Waugh's life. The anonymous and undoubtedly English author has read the important documents and conveyed the information succinctly and sometimes elegantly, as in the view that Waugh's death released him "from the ignominy of an empty and unsolicited old age." And the illustrations are very well chosen: a reproduction of Ambrose McEvoy's painting of Lady Diana Cooper; photographs of Rosa Lewis and Cavendish, original of Lottie Crump and Shepheard's Hotel in Vile Bodies; a photograph of Waugh's mother that I have not seen before; an aerial view of Lancing College. The standard of the essay falls off, though not fatally, in the other section, where the illustrations are mostly drawings intended to convey impressions of Waugh characters and situations or of the period and the text depends on quick summary to support broad generalizations. The "Reader's Guide" section is devoted to Vile Bodies, apparently for its "period" qualities rather than its literary quality. It contains a plot summary, a section on "Social Satire" (Waugh exposes "the ineptitude and corruption endemic in a society preoccupied with sensual gratification"), and a list of characters and drawings of them. In "Savage Humour," the third section, the author generalizes that Waugh's work has a limited social range of characters whom he refused to explore in depth and that "his books inevitable constitute an unintended portrait of Evelyn Waugh's difficult, troubled personality." One could quarrel with the principle of selection in "Works in Outline," which does not mention .6.laQk Mischief, A Handful of Dust, and Put Out More Flags. The final section, "Sources and Inspiration: The Roaring Twenties," is little more than armchair social history of the thinnest sort. The works cited do not include any biography or bibliography of Waugh. On the whole, however, this work can be recommended to beginning students, for the illustrations will console them as much as the style elevates their taste.

A PROOF COPY OF MEN AI ARMS

Some time ago, I had the opportunity of examining a proof copy of the first English edition of Men at Arms. It probably is a near final proof because it was bound in the complete printed dustjacket. This proof copy is divided into thirty numbered chapters, whereas the final printed edition is separated into three "books" with the titles Apthorpe Glorious, Apthorpe Furibundus and Apthorpe lmmolatus, and with small print number chapter headings under each of the three divisions. The final arrangement is a definite improvement, both for giving print variety and for focusing the story on the significance of Apthorpe's character. There are several additional changes between the proof copy and the printed version, all but one of a minor nature. Most of the changes involve the use of punctuation marks (mainly hyphens and periods) for more clarity. For example, Ritchie-Hook's greeting, "Morning Tickeridge. Morning Crouch­ back" in the proof copy becomes "Morning, Tickeridge. Morning, Crouchback" in the published version, while "SMO" becomes "S.M.O." !n the hardcover edition. !n the proof copy '~he" in The Wind in the Willows had not been capitalized or italicized; and in the proof version, "high church" had not been capitalized in referring to Apthorpe's aunts. The most significant change occurs in a passage involving the Dakar raid on the African coast: Proof Copy: 'The only response, quite near to his left, was a foreign challenge. Then the explosion of a grenade." Final Version: 'The only response, quite near to his left, was a challenge. 'Halte-1a1 Gui vive?' Then the explosion of a grenade." This change is a marked improvement, much more vivid and concrete, and typical of Waugh's constant concern with precise description and the exact words.

-- Paul A. Doyle

MUSAITO NOT MOSTICA

In Brideshead Revisited in the Venice section Waugh uses the word mostica to mean mosquito. On a recent trip to Italy, Professor Joanna Poletti, Emeritus Professor at Nassau Community College, investigated this point and learned that the word for mosquito in the Venetian dialect is musatto. Obviously typing or proofreading errors are involved, or else Waugh misheard the word.

The Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies, designed to stimulate research and continue interest in the life and writings of Evelyn Waugh, is published three times a year in April, September and December {Spring, Autumn, and Winter numbers). Subscription rate $8.00 a year. Single copy $4.00. Checks and money orders should be made payable to the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter. Overseas subscriptions must be paid in US funds: MO, check, or cash. Notes, brief essays, and news items about Waugh and his work may be submitted, but manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to Dr. P.A. Doyle, English Dept., Nassau Community College, State University of New York, Garden City, N.Y. 11530. Editorial Board - Editor: P.A. Doyle; Associate Editors: Winnifred M. Bogaards (University of New Brunswick); Alfred W. Borrello (Kingsborough Community College); Robert M. Davis (Univ. of Oklahoma); Heinz Kosek (Univ. of Wuppertal); Charles E. Linck, Jr. (East Texas State Univ.). Bibliographical Editor: Gerhard Wolk (Univ. of Wuppertal).