EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETrER AND STUDIES

Volume 30, Number 1 Spring, 1996

EVELYN WAUGH AS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER By Jeffrey A. Manley

There can be little doubt that Evelyn Waugh was the direct inspiration for a fictional character in the works of the English writer, Henry Williamson (1895-1977). He appears as the young novelist Anthony Crull in Williamson's novel sequence "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight." Anthony Crull and his wife (Virginia) figure as secondary characters in The Power of the Pead (, 1963). This is the eleventh volume in Williamson's 15 volume cycle, which covers the period from the 1890's until the late 1940's. Williamson's "Chronicle" is relatively little known in the United States, having failed to find a publisher in this country. 1 He is known best here for his wildlife novels, such as and Salar The Salmon, as well as for his earlier tetralogy "The Flax of Dreams."2 Williamson's quite overt and unapologetic support for Sir and , who Williamson seriously believed would save Europe from another devastating war, probably contributed to his failure to find a U.S. publisher for the "Chronicle" and goes a long way toward explaining his loss of popularity even in England, where he enjoyed a relative success until the late 1930's. Williamson's use of Evelyn Waugh as the basis for the character Tony Crull is fairly well known among Williamson scholars and fans.3 Perhaps because of Williamson's relative obscurity after the 1930's, this characterization appears to have been little remarked by Waugh scholars. In The Power of the Dead (''TPOTD") the main character, Phillip Maddison, is largely autobio­ graphical. At the time the events in this novel take place, in the late 1920's, Maddison has just enjoyed his first major literary success with an award for his novel The Water Wanderer. This corresponds with Williamson's receipt of the 1927 Hawthornden Prize for Literature for his novel, Tarka the Otter.4 Based on this success, Maddison/Williamson is introduced to another young British author (Tony Crull) then also enjoying a recent success and living in London with this newly married wife Virginia. The introduction is arranged by the character Piers Tofield, who is a neighbor of Maddison's living in the area where Maddison is at the time attempting to farm. Tofield is based on John Heygate who was, in fact, a close friend of Williamson's.5 Heygate is also the second husband of Evelyn Gardner (1903-1994), who was Waugh's first wife, and it was their affair that caused the break-up of Waugh's first marriage. Prior to the meeting of the two writers, Tofield informs Maddison that Cruft "is going to make a name for himself" and has just published "a novel of Oxford, a very funny one." In fact, Decline and Fall was published n London in 1928, the same year Williamson received the Hawthornden prize.6 Tofield goes on to describe Cruft as having

' ... a flat in a little known part of London.' He avoided the word suburb. 'It's a rather pleasant square. Early Victorian. I suppose city merchants once lived there, and took a bus to the office and back. Or more likely keep their mistresses where no one would have heard of the place.'

TPOTD, p. 189. Crull is said to have been inspired to locate here because of his interest "in 16th-century architecture." The square where the house is located adjoined "the site of the country residence of the Priors of St. Bartholomew, or rather the tower which remains ... " .!.ct. p. 189. This is in an area north and east of Kings Cross Station. This coincides geographically with the location of Waugh's flat in Canonbury Square, Islington? Upon arrival, Tofield and Maddison are admitted to the top flat of the building by the occupants who drop a key from their window. Cruft is described as

"... a young man of modest aspect, cool, self-contained, with a quiet manner concealing an intent watchfulness. He was remotely friendly. He had a face of good proportion, reminding Phillip of