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Home , Brendan Bracken, Cyril Connolly, Robert Byron

NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Volume 26, Number 1 Spring, 1992 WAUGH'S LETTERS TO : THE TULSA ARCHIVE By Robert Murray Davis (University of Oklahoma) In 1975 the University of Tulsa acquired thirty-nine boxes of Cyril Connolly's papers. They are housed in the Special Collections division of McFarlin Library, and a "Guide to the Cyril Connolly Papers," prepared by Ms. Jennifer Carlson, is available from the library (600 South College Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74104-3189; phone (918) 631-2496; Bitnet: SHUTTNER@TULSA (for Sidney F. Huttner, Curator). Material by and to Waugh is contained in files 25 through 31 of Box 19. However, the materials have not been arranged in chronological order; some are undated; and not all of the dates assigned are accurate. The calendar which follows is designed first to inform students of Waugh about the existence of the collection and to indicate the importance of individual items and of the collection as a whole. Second, the calendar attempts to arrange the materials in chronological order.

[1923?] Printed heading, Balliol College. Waugh wants to know what happened at [Basil?] Murray's tea; he refused to pay a subscription for a large gun.

[Summer 1931]. To Jean Connolly, thanking her for having him to stay. Disliked Villefranche. Nina Seafeld was there; she had collected the major bores on the Riviera. Has come to Cabris, near Grasse, living with a crazy priest. Numbers, as scores, written in another hand. [Dating from letter to Henry Yorke, Summer 1931; Letters, p. 55.]

[Early 1934] Sends regrets for cocktail party because he is in Fez writing a novel. He will return before Easter.

19 October 1942. Welcomes Connolly to membership in White's; Waugh himself is a new member, having resigned from Buck's, and is already enamored of the authentic coffee house atmosphere at White's. Has led a quiet life with friends since transferring from the marines to the army. Is willing to write for and has leisure to review anything suitable. Note in another hand, in green ink, including what may be notes for The Unquiet Grave. Also numbers, perhaps a cipher.

14 October 43. From St. James' Club. Sorry not to have said goodnight to Connolly at his party and sorrier for reason [something to do with Connolly's health?]. Waugh enjoyed party and regrets that Connolly couldn't.

[Early 1944?] From White's. Sorry he couldn't find the train connection. Is writing a very good book unless he is badly mistaken; the army will probably not bother him. See Diaries, 4 May 1944, p. 562.

16th September [1947]. Photocopy of item in Letters, pp. 259-60, offering Connolly The Loved One for Horizon.

2 January 1948. Material for Connolly's "Comment" on The Loved One in Horizon. Letters, pp. 265- 66.

[Early 1948]. Connolly's note: "The Loved One." Thanks Connolly for the advance copy of the magazine, praises his preface, and wishes that he had more openly acknowledged Connolly's help in editing the novel. Now plans to get back to work on something old-fashioned [probably Helena]. Has been told that there will be no problems with libel in America. Wishes him luck with his diet at Tring. Was in London but saw only people on business and the habitues of White's. Lent is beginning and Waugh is giving up cigars.

20th March, n.y. Denies that he wrote an article in this week's Tablet in case Connolly is offended. Disliked an article by a Piavane [?]. Pokes fun at a Scottie Wilson exhibition.

2 March 1948. Is touched by Scottie Wilson's plight. Is trying to sell a book by Owen Jones. Wonders if Connolly's woman friend, Lys Lubbock, will give cooking lessons to the Waugh cook. Letters, p. 271. -2- 6th April [1948?]. Sends a pony for an American woman. Sending cigars separately; they need care. Can't invite Connolly and Miss Brownell, whom he doesn't dislike, to stay during holidays, but would be pleased to have them for luncheon. There will be no comfort at P.iers Court until school starts again and the children leave. Monsignor Knox will be staying with them 23-28.1ssorryto hear about Orwell's illness and offers to visit him if he would like. Praises a new liver pill, Boldine Hondee.

3 May 1948. Regrets that he can't come to Connolly's May 7 party, but offers him best wishes in his new home [22 Sussex Place, Regents Park, N.W.]. Waugh goes to Copenhagen the first week in June. Could Connolly get sent by PEN? Wants 6 copies of Horizon with Knox article. Would like a photo of all the Horizon contributors having fun at his party.

21 July 1948. Offers 50 pounds as prize in the November Horizon if the winner needs the money. Praises the criticism of in the June issue. Invites Connolly to Piers Court after he returns from Aquitaine.

N.d. [but c. 12 September 1948; see E3c Catalogue].. Sees Randolph Churchill's living this long as proof that civilization ended with the prohibition of duels. In a better age, he would have been shot, stabbed, or driven abroad twenty years ago. Waugh has had nettle rash all summer; thinks a change is the only cure so is going to the U.S. in November. Is angry with Time magazine, whose representative made superfluous comments on the trousers of Waugh's servants. Has read 's The Death of the Heart for the first time and, having known her for some time, has just realized that she is a genius. Asks if Connolly has read Patrick Balfour's novel. Asks Connolly's opinion of Thomas Merton's poetry. Waugh thinks it bad but trusts Merton on religious issues. Asks if Connolly has heard the gossip about Ran [Antrim]. Regrets that Christopher Hollis feels compelled to quote bad light verse when he writes.

23rd October [1948]. Leaves for US in a week. Sorry that Connolly dislikes the illustrations to the book version of The Loved One but has come to dislike them himself except for the ones without human figures and some of the letters which begin chapters. Thinks Dennis Barlow looks rather like Peter Quennel I as a young man. Discounted gossip about Quennel I and June Osborne. Repeats his praise of Connolly's help in improving The Loved One.

1 April 1949. Waugh has just returned [from America] with cigars for Connolly. Had promised to contribute towards Horizon's prize for fiction if the author needed the money. Does she? Will fork out if politicos let him. Has seen enough of America and longs for Connolly's civilized company.

29 May 1949. Reminds Connolly of visit to Waugh on June 4. Best train leaves Paddington at 4:55, arrives in Stroud at 7.

Post Card, postmarked Dursley 4 September 1949. On front, Picasso's "Woman's Head." Message: "Quat I petis I hie I est" [This is what you are looking for.]

Postcard sent as letter [Letters, p. 301, dated as 1949]. Opened by mistake. is wrong to think that Connolly, Waugh, and another member will resign from White's if Peter Quennel! is elected.

11 January 1950. Thanks him for inviting him to a luncheon featuring good wine and Clarissa [Churchill?]. Wants to talk about after reading Gathorne-Hardy's memoir. Waugh tries never to go to London because he is too shaky afterward. Saw Peter Rodd suffering from locomotor ataxia, wearing a waistcoat made from an old carpet. Everyone was drunk at Pratt's. Saw Patrick Balfour. Must refuse Connolly's invitation. Invites Connolly to Piers Court before Ash Wednesday. Plans to go to Rome after Easter. Has written more of Helena. Is going to lecture to Catholic students and welcomes the end of the year [in which he promised to accept all such speaking engagements].

22nd March [1950]. Has consulted his doctor [Golden] about obesity and discovers that he will live a long time unless someone is kind enough to explode an atomic bomb. Thanks Connolly for a present; he rarely gets one. Has finished Helena, which is shorter than he expected. He likes it but doesn't think fashionable ladies or Connolly will. May write a guide to the city of Gloucester like E. M. Forster's on Alexandria. Will be in Italy from Easter to Pentecost, trying to travel simply in the manner of his youth but doubts that even newly slimmed he will be able to do so. -3- Easter, 1950. Thanks Connolly for gift [of a kind of cabinet]; had expected a joke. Asks its function. Will have plenty of Italian funds Italy and asks Connolly to join him. Hoping to get to give him a tour of . Wants to purge wartime memories of an Italy full of American troops, crooks, and prostitutes.

8 September [1952]. The letter about Connolly's review of Men at Arms. Letters, pp. 382-83.

21 September 1952. Tries to mollify Connolly's hurt feelings about "home fires" and Horizon. Corrects errors of fact in Connolly's article about Waugh for Time [unpublished; the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas-Austin, holds a corrected typescript of the article, not listed in Catalogue.]. Letters, pp. 384-85.

9 December [1953 postmark]. Thanks Connolly for copy of Golden Horizon. Letters, p. 414.

20 December [1953]. Thanks Connolly for gift of an edition of Prudentius. Rejects Connolly's praise of Klee. American restaurants have virtues that French ones lack. Letters, p. 416.

13 March 1954. Is angry for Connolly's sake about an article in New Statesman. ["The Joker in the Pack," New Statesman and Nation, 47 (13 March 1954), 310-311. The article contains considerable praise for Connolly's incorruptibility as an artist but also makes him sound very much like Waugh.] Advises Connolly to rebuke the anonymous author. Wants news about Sir Mortimer Gossage. Hears Connolly is to have a fur lined overcoat. Tells of his Pinfold attack of insanity, caused by drugs and apparently non-recurrent. A good excuse to stop work. Invites Connolly and wife, but warns of few servants, though good claret. Since he has been using paraldehyde, he enjoys wine less.

Corpus Christi 1954. Is invited to Geneva in September for a congress. Hears that Connolly is also invited, and hopes to go with him. Doesn't know if money offered will be enough. If Connolly says no, so will Waugh.

30 August 1954. A young male visitor had no pajamas. [Possibly Edward Sheehan; cf. Letters, 6 August 1954.] Connolly seems to be right about Geneva invitations. Is making beer, but not up to the standards of A. E. Housman's Terence. Is out of cigars.

9 November 1954. Thanks Connolly for introduction to Mrs. Franks. Found a painting he wanted­ not the one Connolly suggested. Connolly's Sunday column revealed his ignorance of the finer points of Victorian painting. Goes to Jamaica in January and wants Connolly to go to. Went to Rheims to drink very odd champagne. Recommends an ale as a sedative. Recommends the first half of Daphne [Fielding's Mercury Presides]. American publishers of Churchill's book on Lord Marlborough have ordered a large printing because they thought it about Lord Montagu.

9 January 1955. Enjoyed Connolly's article in the otherwise appalling Encounter; comments on it. Letters, p. 436.

7 August 1957. Asks if Waugh's last book reached Connolly at White's. Asks if he remembers predicting eleven years ago that in a decade Egypt would be a center of civilization from whom would gladly learn. Waugh found the prediction in the issue of Horizon devoted to Scottie Wilson. Asks how to get rid of surface weed in his pond.

21 October [1957? Year illegible on postmark, but sent from Combe Florey.] One of W's neighbors wants to know who Pinfold is. Come visit.

28 September 1960. Reports bad experience with Daily Mail subeditors. Had been paid to go to Greece, and Greeks put themselves out to show him antiquities. The editors cut all references to those and featured DDT in the headline. [See Bibliography, A898.] So Waugh wasn't put out by Connolly's review [of Tourist in Africa; see Bibliography, B1396] but disagrees with Connolly's view of air travel and airports. Also hates game reserves. Sorry to hear of Connolly's botulism, which he thought an invention of English newspapers. Connolly has never visited Combe Florey and is invited to do so.

23 October 1961. Denies that Everard Spruce in Unconditional Surrender is based on Connolly. Letters, pp. 577-78. -4- 23 May 1961. Hears that Connolly is selling letters written to him. If he has any of Waugh's, asks for first refusal at market value. Note by Connolly: kept all but one, sold with [association? presentation?] copy. [Probably of ; see below.]

29 October [1961; accompanying envelope postmarked 24 Oct 1961; written above the stamp, Connolly's note that this is an important letter]. Further denial that Spruce is Connolly and praise of Horizon's accomplishments. Letters, p. 578.

N.D. [1961; see next item]. Photocopy of half-title page of Brideshead Revisited, with note urging Connolly to resist suggestions that any of the characters are based on him and to follow Hilaire Belloc's injunction to follow the example of men of Sussex.

2nd November [1961; as pm] It is All Souls' Day; lists those departed friends who did not have a requiem (Richard Pares, , Peter Fitzwilliam, Peter Beatty) and Olivia Plunkett Greene, who did. Offers a copy of the original [1944 special edition?] of Brideshead Revisited to make up for the annoyance about the characterization, but notes that it has leaf with recipient's name torn out. Discusses his motive for writing Wine in Peace and War and says [in response to a query?] that he was satisfied with his payment in wine. Rex Whistler's drawings were originally included in letters written to Vsevelode when Whistler was a battalion mess officer.

29 November [1961]. Thanks Connolly for gift of Belloc ode, despite Cooper's name on it. Has told the woman who made the Spruce mischief to think again, and she has now fixed on Quenneii.Gives information about his juvenilia. Is going to Manaos. Met at Pam Berry's; he was civil but stole Waugh's watch. Has been informed that Amazon vampire bats are rabid, so may not see Connolly again.

12 October 1962. Thanks Connolly for a suggestion and wonders if it is possible to make a pun on Seal as in the Apocalypse. Is pleased to have appeared in a crossword clue; better than an MBE or a red-brick honorary doctorate. Hears that Connolly met Philip Caraman, S.J.

28 December [1962? Connolly was born in 1903]. Thanks Connolly for sending a book, with photos. Best wishes for his 60th year. 8 September 1963. Is sending Connolly some wine for his birthday.

28 November 1963. The BBC asked Waugh to do a conversation between himself and a critic and Waugh chose Connolly, but will understand if he refuses.

13 December 1963. Connolly is off the hook for the tv interview because the BBC wants a young woman as interviewer. Dreads Christmas but looks forward to several weeks at Mentone, fitting for a man his age.

3 November 1963. Regarding Desmond [MacCarthy]'s embarrassment in discussing Swinburne's prose, he was bothered more by the class difference [between him and ] than by the smut. Postcard

3 November 1963. Does not think that the dinner in question was given for Thomas, of whom Waugh nor any other guest had ever heard. Lists possible guests. Postcard continuing from the previous item.

The following material is undated.

Note with Savile Club heading [probably late 1920's]. Waugh took away a black hat and left a brown one; wants to exchange. Connolly's note: it was Piers Synnott's hat; Waugh was later rude to him. The party was held at 312A Kings Road.

April 2nd [probably post-war]. Waugh will be at the Hyde Park Hotel for a week and asks Connolly to dine.

Card, not in Waugh's hand, that Waugh gave instructions to send this photograph, attached, of a young woman. -5- Note, headed White's, from Connolly. [after 1943; probably post-war]. Asks Waugh to sign a book for him to complete his collection of signed first editions.

17 June [before 1956; Piers Court heading). Waugh to Lys [Lubbock). Invites her and Connolly before school holidays. Gives train schedules. Annotations about times in another hand.

Photograph of Waugh family and servants, Piers Court. James Waugh is the youngest child, so before 1950, when Septimus was born, and probably 1948.

MARY WAUGH AND JULIA'S DAUGHTER IN BRIDESHEAD REVISITED By John Howard Wilson (Dakota Wesleyan University) Many commentators have identified real-life precedents for scenes and characters in Brideshead Revisited. Lord Marchmain's making the sign of the cross on his deathbed has often been traced, for instance, to Hubert Duggan's making the sign of the cross, on his deathbed, in October 1943. 1 I am not, however, aware of any attempt to identify a precedent for Julia Flyte's daughter, who died at birth, as Julia tells Charles Ryder in Book II. The detail seems to derive from Mary, the Waughs' third child, who died within twenty-four hours of her birth in the autumn of 1940, about three years before Waugh started work on the novel. The child's death impels Julia to reconsider her faith, while Lord March main's act of will persuades her to affirm it later. Thus the child's effect on the resolution of the novel is almost as great as that of her grandfather, Lord Marchmain himself. The end of the novel combines two of Waugh's most wrenching experiences, and though it is the more understated, the connection between Mary Waugh and Julia's daughter is also the more complicated example of Waugh transforming life into fiction. In April1940 Waugh was a temporary officer in the Royal Marines, training in southern England. His wife Laura had informed him of her pregnancy, Waugh finding it "sad news" for her. As a soldier, however, "surrounded with the spectacle of a world organized to kill," Waugh could not "help feeling some consolation in the knowledge that new life is being giveri .... A child that is a danger & distress now may be your greatest happiness in the future" (Letters 139). It was Laura's third pregnancy in three years, and both parents recognized the strain. By November Laura was nearing the end of her term, but Waugh was busy trying to arrange a transfer from the Marines to Number 8 Commando. He succeeded, moving to Scotland for further training. There, on Saturday night, 30 November, Waugh received a telephone call from his mother-in-law, Mary Herbert, who was with Laura at Pixton Park, the Harberts' home in Somerset. She said that "Laura had begun her labour." There was no sign of difficulty, and Waugh found out later that it was "an easy birth, very sudden at the end." The baby was born "at midday on Sunday," 1 December, in obviously poor condition, which led Laura's mother to have her christened Mary the same day. Perhaps Mrs. Herbert also gave Waugh another call. He tried to avoid Laura's confinements, disliking the disruption and the presence of her family. This time he came quickly, traveling "on Sunday night and Monday morning, arriving at ... 10.30." The "baby died shortly after [his) arrival," and Waugh "saw her when she was dead-a blue, slatey colour. Poor little girl, she was not wanted." Laura was in "good health," however, and Waugh spent his time "by Laura's side, talking, doing crosswords, etc." (Diaries 488-89), offering what comfort he could. Waugh seems not to have otherwise recorded Laura's reaction; except, perhaps, in his characterization of Julia Flyte. Toward the end of Brideshead, Julia and Charles meet on an ocean liner after years of separation. Almost everyone else is seasick, and they pass the time by talking. Julia tells Charles about her pregnancy with the child of her husband, Rex Mottram. She "decided to have it brought up a Catholic," even though she hadn't thought about religion before; I haven't since; but just at that time, when I was waiting for the birth, I thought, 'that's one thing I can give her. It doesn't seem to have done me much good, but my child shall have it.' It was odd, wanting to give something one had lost oneself. Unlike Julia, Laura Waugh seems never to have lost her faith. Laura's dead child becomes, however, part of a fictional plan, "A Twitch upon the Thread," drawing Julia, and the rest of the Flytes, back to their faith. As Julia says, "It becomes part of oneself, if they give it one early enough. And yet I wanted my child to have it" (259). Certainly Laura also wanted to raise the children in the faith; presumably she had fewer doubts about the importance of such an upbringing. Like Laura, however, Julia discovers that she "couldn't even give that: I couldn't even give her life." Perhaps Laura, like Julia, "never saw her; I was too ill to know what was going on, and afterwards for a long time, until now, I didn't want to speak about her.'' Julia concludes that she's "been punished a little for marrying Rex," who has been married before. She "can't get all that sort of thing out of my mind, quite-Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell, Nanny Hawkins, and the Catechism." No evidence indicates that Laura regarded the death of her child as a kind of punishment. Her -6- reaction was, nevertheless, probably similar to Julia's, if less dramatic, the event leading her, and her husband, to turn to their faith for meaning in a moment of crisis. Julia perceives this meaning, suggesting to Charles that "that is why you and I are here together like this ... part of a plan" (259). The death of the child prepares Julia to affirm her faith and renounce Charles, steps she is ready to take only after her father's last act of will. Julia adds that her baby was "a daughter, so Rex didn't so much mind her being dead" (259). This remark helps to make sense of Waugh's odd comment that Mary was "not wanted." 1940 was not, of course, the best time to have a child in England, the country under attack, U-boats making food scarce. Waugh was able to publish Work Suspended and Put Out More Flags in 1942, and Brideshead appeared in 1945, but he did very little journalism during the war, losing a substantial part of his pre-war income. The pay of a junior officer did not come close to retrieving the loss, and Waugh decided to let his house, Piers Court, to an order of nuns, who were in residence for the duration. Presumably he was anxious about having to provide for another child. Still, the Waughs had two more children before the end of the war, and difficult circumstances may not have been the only reasons Mary was "not wanted." In 1940 the Waughs already had two children, Teresa, born in 1938, and, perhaps more important for Waugh at that time, a son and heir, Auberon, born in 1939. Through Rex, Waugh seems to be skewering his own indifference to Mary, and to the people he often called "Laura's children." The loss of one child may have shown him the value of the others. Certainly Margaret, born in 1942, became Waugh's favorite. Rex's expression, or exaggeration, of Waugh's own attitude raises the large question of relationship between author and characters. Obviously that question involves more than identifying Charles as the mouthpiece of Waugh, or Rex as a caricature of , or Julia as a portrait of Laura. In his fiction Waugh used much of his own experience and many characteristics of people he knew, but he combined experience and characteristics in original ways, creating characters who are usually composites rather than copies of individuals. Rex is indifferent to the death of the child, but Charles has, like Waugh himself when Mary died, two children, a girl and a boy, Caroline and Johnjohn. Despite the similarity, the equation between author and hero is impossible, partly because Waugh has attributed bits of his experience to different characters, partly because Charles is not the father of Julia's daughter, partly because Waugh was not, like Charles, estranged from the mother of his children. Charles's wife, Celia, reminds one of Waugh's first wife, She-Evelyn, while Julia is in some ways like Waugh's second wife, Laura. Waugh mixes the facts of life so thoroughly in his fiction that equation, again, becomes impossible: he and She-Evelyn had no children, while Charles and Celia have two; he married Laura, but Charles doesn't marry Julia. The complexity of the relationship between life and art attests to the futility of identifying "models" for various characters, something many commentators have been content to do. Waugh uses many "models" in the creation of a single character, especially in Work Suspended, Brideshead.. and Sword of Honour; a list of these models would be long and confusing, probably impossible to complete without the assistance of Waugh himself. Waugh's complex method of characterization also attests to the half-truth of the Author's Note to Brides head: "I am not I; thou art not he or she; they are not they." A more revealing note might begin "I am not only I, but also thou and they." Though tracing Waugh's characters to his contemporaries often leads to confusion, it is still possible to make some connections between his experience and his representation of that experience. The death of Mary was, for instance, obviously on his mind when we was writing Brideshead. The death of her child dramatically finishes Julia's relationship with Rex, helping to frustrate her worldliness. Waugh was not just making a moral point, however. He was also dealing with the residue of his own life, going over the ground again, not just to find material, but to comprehend more thoroughly the meaning of his own past. It makes little sense to say that, in 1940, Waugh felt for Laura what Charles feels for Celia, that the child's death was somehow crucial in transforming their relationship in the same way that Charles's contempt for Celia turns into admiration for Julia. Mary's death did transform Waugh's relationship with Laura, just as it changed Waugh himself, but those changes are not represented simply in Charles's relationship with other characters. At the end of the novel, Charles is conscious of a divine plan he had never noticed before, and the hero's development seems in this respect to mirror Waugh's own. Having witnessed the deaths of his daughter, Mary, and his friend, Hubert Duggan, Waugh was more than ever committed to Catholicism, and his commitment showed, in Brides head, Helena, and Sword of Honour. By 1944, when he wrote Brideshead, Waugh had begun to believe in the holiness of human beings-that of his children, but also that of his wife. Brides head Revisited is, after all, dedicated to Laura, and, difficult as it is to trace the influence of Waugh's life on the novel, we can be confident that she recognized the references to their own experience, and that she knew what he meant. -7- Notes 'Robert Murray Davis reviews this relationship and explores many other critical issues in Brideshead Revisited: The Past Redeemed (Boston: Twayne, 1990). Davis does not, however, make the connection between Mary Waugh and Julia's daughter. Works Cited Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. Boston: Little, 1945. _ The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. Ed. Michael Davie. Boston: Little, 1976. - The Letters of Evelyn Waugh. Ed. Mark Amory. 1980. New York: Penguin, 1982.

EVELYN WAUGH VS. HUGH TREVOR-ROPER By John W. Osborne (Rutgers University) I am glad also to observe, in the circumstances of my own departure, an insurance of almost Burckhardtian1 historical prediction. Twenty-six years ago I was so unfortunate as to displease, by a historical obiter dictum, that great champion of the , the late Mr. Evelyn Waugh. In the course of the public debate which followed, and which became at times somewhat tart, that vigorous writer, believing that he had gained some advantage over me, broke into a cry of triumph. "One honourable course," he wrote, "is open to Mr. Trevor-Roper. He should change his name and seeka livelihood at Cambridge." This little episode had long faded from my memory, when it was recalled to it, a few weeks ago, outside Blackwell's bookshop, by that accurate recorder of ancient history, Professor Momigliano.'l am sorry that Mr. Waugh is not alive to savor this little victory, which I would willingly concede to one who cared so much for 'our rich and delicate language', the necessary vehicle and sole preservative, for us, both of history and of imagination. The above quotation is from Hugh Trevor-Roper's 1980 Valedictory Lecture at Oxford, after his resignation as Regius Professor of Modern History.3 In the pervious year he was elevated to the with the title of Lord Dacre of Glanton; in 1980 he was elected Master of Peterhouse, a college at Cambridge University. In an ironic fashion, Waugh's 1954 request ("one honorable course is open to Mr. Trevor-Roper. He should change his name and seek a livelihood at Cambridge")' was fulfilled. The background to Trevor-Roper's comment was a dispute between the two men about the Reformation. Their argument appeared in the pages of The New Statesman in 1953-1954. Trevor­ Roper was then a student (tutor) of Christ Church College, Oxford.'ln his published diary, Waugh refers to Trevor-Roper once in 1954 and again in 1955 6 Trevor-Roper has long been involved in historical controversy. His dispute with R. H. Tawney over the condition of the seventeenth century gentry has been familiar to students of English history for decades. Later he challenged the formidable A. J.P. Taylor (his rival for the Regius Professorship in 1957) about the causes of World War II. Versatile, Trevor-Roper has written ably on a wide-range of historical issues. He admires Edward Gibbon and, like that master, can assume a sardonic tone about religion. It was the latter attitude which irritated Waugh. Readers of this journal can judge for themselves who had the better of the argument. I believe that Waugh was more secure in his grasp of history on this issue than he was on other matters. It is pleasant that Trevor-Roper (himself a descendant of Saint Thomas More), ended the controversy in this gracious fashion. I am calling attention to this fort he benefit of Waugh scholars who may believe that the matter ended in 1954. Notes 'Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), Swiss historian who emphasized the role of chance in history. 'Arnaldo Momigliano, Classical scholar. 3History and Imagination Essays in Honour of H. R. Trevor-Roper. Ed. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl and Blair Worden. (London, Duckworth, 1981 ), p. 369. 'The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, Ed. Mark Amory. (London, , 1982) p. 644. 5 The correspondence is in an appendix of The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, p. 641-647. 6 The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, Ed. Michael Davie. (Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1976), p. 722, p. 746. Trevor-Roper's name does not appear in the index of Sykes' biography of Waugh.

BOOK REVIEW Alain Blayac, ed. Evelyn Waugh: New Directions. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. 160 pp. $49.95. Reviewed by John Howard Wilson, Dakota Wesleyan University. Blayac has collected seven essays on Waugh's life and fiction. Two are familiar and two overlap, so the directions are not always new, not completely divergent. New Directions nevertheless -a- contributes to Waugh scholarship, and one hopes that it will stimulate research, writing, and publication. Most interesting to me is Donat Gallagher's "Evelyn Waugh and Vatican Divorce." Drawing on Vatican records of Waugh's annulment, Gallagher dispels two misconceptions: that Waugh talked She-Evelyn into giving false evidence, and that "this untruth ... won the case" (62). Gallagher clearly explains facts and laws, making his essay indispensable to biographers and critics assessing the influence of marriage, divorce, and Catholicism. The most useful work on the fiction is Robert M. Davis's "Imagined Space in Brideshead Revisited." Davis confronts the recurring question of Charles Ryder's character and the credibility of his conversion. He shows how the Prologue separates here from there, Ryder imagining himself "as either an outsider trying to get in or a prisoner trying to get out" (23), transcending these roles only in · the Epilogue. Davis enriches one's reading, though a more extensive interpretation is available in his Brideshead Revisited; The Past Redeemed (1990). Davis appears next to Jean Louis Chevalier's"Arcadian Minutiae: Notes on Brideshead Revisited;" two essays on the same novel, while the trilogy is hardly mentioned in the collection. Unfortunately, Chevalier adds little: one lucid passage on the end of the novel, and a lot of unedifying comparisons to French poetry. Leszek S. Kolek provides "Black Mischief as a Comic Structure." The essay starts slowly, explaining "joke structure" and all the implications of the opening. Kolek is insightful on savagery and civilization. He also relates the novel to Waugh's other works, indicating Black Mischief's "contribution to the repertoire of the writer's poetics" (19). Winnifred M. Bogaards offers "Evelyn Waugh and the BBC," based on research in the corporation's archives. Bogaards traces the long relationship in detail, showing how Waugh used the BBC for publicity and frustrated their initiatives by demanding too much money. Bogaards ends with Waugh's last broadcast, though her research would justify more elaborate conclusions about the significance of Waugh's behavior. Blayac's contribution is "Evelyn Waugh and Humour," a broad topic for twenty pages. Finding the subject "baffling to Cartesian minds" (xiii), Blayac tries to define humor, going back to Ben Jonson, distinguishing it from wit and irony, and dividing it into different "shades." Blayac is best on ·humor as "authorial catharsis" (130), but the topic really requires lengthier treatment. Almost all quotations are from the first five novels and The Loved One. The last essay is George McCartney's "The Being and Becoming of Evelyn Waugh," gathered from his Confused Roaring (1987). The selection is curious, since it devotes much space to contemporaries' ideas. McCartney does identify an intellectual, not a moral basis for Waugh's satire, and he does deal with Helena, but the essay represents the novel as the culmination of Waugh's religious understanding. New Directions contains something to interest every Waugh enthusiast, though one could wish for an essay on the trilogy and for more material otherwise unavailable.

Auberon Waugh, Will This Do? London: Century, 1991. 228 pp. £15.99. In this well-written autobiography of Auberon's fifty years, there are few new insights about his father. Evelyn's present for Auberon's twenty-first birthday was to remit his son's debts. There is understandable resentment from hostile obituary reactions to Evelyn's demise, and the book has some fine photos of the family and of Pixton Park and Piers Court. Because of the numerous changes instituted since Vatican II, Auberon is .no longer a church-goer, but he asserts: "whenever I have doubts, it is my father's fury rather than Divine retribution which I dread." (PAD)

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 $3.00. 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 Kosok (Univ. of Wuppertal); Charles E. Linck, Jr. (East Texas State Univ.).