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EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 41, No. 1 Spring 2010

A Note on British of Rank With Special Reference to the Works of Evelyn Waugh by Donald Greene[1] Late of the University of Southern California

Most Americans and nowadays some Britons are vague about the use of British titles. Since an untitled man may be referred to as either “Mr. Smith” or “Mr. John Smith,” and his wife as “Mrs. Smith,” “Mrs. John Smith,” or “Mrs. Mary Smith,” it is assumed that “” and “” may be used in the same indiscriminate way. This is not so: their use is clearly defined. “Lord Smith” may be anything from a marquess to a ; “Lord John Smith” can only be the son of a or marquess. “Lady Smith” may be anything from a marchioness to the wife of a knight; “Lady Mary Smith” is the daughter of a duke, marquess, or ; “Lady John Smith” is the wife of a younger son of a duke or marquess. Waugh, like other English novelists before him—Fielding, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope—is perfectly familiar with these usages and never makes a mistake with them; they provide useful clues to the social position of his characters. He would have been shocked by references in recent criticism and biography to “Lady Teresa Marchmain” and “Lady Diana Mosley,” designations which those could never have borne. A recent biography promotes Waugh’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Aubrey Herbert, to “Lady Herbert,” and demotes Waugh’s schoolfellow, Lord Molson, to “Lord Hugh Molson,” thus depriving him of his seat in the House of ; as the younger son of a duke or marquess, “Lord Hugh” could only have been a commoner. It is true that these matters of nomenclature can be complex. Yet after centuries of use, it is not likely that they will be abandoned in Britain. Serious readers of Waugh may find the following notes useful. A study of the relevant pages in the annual Whitaker’s Almanack, listing the current holders of peerages, baronetcies, and knighthoods, would be useful, as would Simon Winchester’s Their Noble Lordships (: Faber & Faber, 1981; New York: Random House, 1982) and Cyril Hankinson, My Forty Years with Debrett (London: Robert Hale, 1963). 1.) All peerages are created by the sovereign (nowadays on advice of the prime minister). There are five grades of peers: in descending order of rank, duke, marquess (the spelling now preferred to the French “marquis”), earl, , baron. Historically, there are five different peerages: those of England and of Scotland, creations before the union of those two kingdoms by the Act of Union of 1707, after which Englishmen and Scots raised to the peerage were peers of Great Britain; peers of , created before Ireland was united with Great Britain by the Act of Union of 1801. After that date, most new creations were peers of the , though a few creations of peers of Ireland still took place. 2.) and duchesses are “of” some territorial designation; and are not. Marquesses and may or may not be “of”; if the “of” is not used, the family name may be taken as the of the peerage, though by no means always; similarly, viscounts and barons often choose their family names as their peerage title. If a title is already in use, an “of” with some other designation may be added to it. The numbering of holders of a hereditary peerage begins anew each time a peerage is created. Thus after the Earldom of became extinct in 1703 with the death of the twentieth earl of the De Vere family, the title was revived in 1711 for Robert Harley, who became the first Earl of Oxford of the second creation. Likewise, after the title became extinct in the Harley family in the nineteenth century, Herbert Henry Asquith was created, in 1925, first Earl of Oxford of the third creation. The “of” does not necessarily indicate important possessions or influence in the region indicated. It was said that the Dukes of Devonshire, whose most important seat, Chatsworth, is in Derbyshire, owned property in every of England but Devonshire. Conversely, the principal seat and sphere of influence of the

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Earls of Derby is in Lancashire. The Dukes of Norfolk live in Sussex, and so on. There are historical reasons for these seeming anomalies. 3.) Most peerages descend by male primogeniture, but a few, mostly Scottish, together with ancient English baronies, may, in absence of a male heir, be inherited by a woman. These ladies are “peeresses in their own right.” By the Peerage Act, 1963, for the first time peeresses in their own right were permitted to sit and vote in the , the upper house of Parliament. 4.) Peers of England, Scotland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, not being minors, were entitled to membership in the House of Lords. After 1707, Scottish peers, who had hitherto sat in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, then abolished, elected sixteen of their number to sit in the House of Lords in Westminster as “representative peers.” Similarly, peers of Ireland sat in the Irish House of Lords in Dublin; after its abolition in 1801, they too elected representative peers to sit in the Westminster House of Lords. Since the Peerage Act of 1963, Scottish peers may now sit in the Westminster House of Lords. Peers of Ireland may not (unless, as many of them do, they have a subsidiary British or United Kingdom peerage), but they may be elected to the House of Commons, as other peers may not. The most famous such Irish peer was ’s prime minister, Viscount Palmerston, who sat in the House of Commons.[2] 5.) Only the head of a peerage family is legally a peer, with the right (except for peers of Ireland) of membership in the House of Lords (of which the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the twenty-four senior bishops of the Church of England, are also members). A peer’s wife (though referred to as a “peeress”) and children, unless they have acquired peerages in their own right, are legally commoners. Thus the first woman to sit in Parliament, the American-born Viscountess Astor, wife of the second Viscount, was elected to the House of Commons in an English constituency. 6.) Courtesy titles. Nearly all dukes, marquesses, and earls hold other peerages of a lower grade, and their oldest surviving sons are “by courtesy” addressed by the title of the second- ranking peerage (which may not necessarily be the grade immediately below that of the head of the family). If there is more than one such subordinate peerage, the oldest son of the oldest son is addressed by the next senior title: thus the oldest son of the Duke of Devonshire is “by courtesy” Marquess of Hartington, and his oldest son is Earl of Burlington. The younger sons of dukes and marquesses are “Lord” with their given and family names. Nevertheless they remain commoners, and the actual peerage indicated by the courtesy title continues to be held by the head of the family. Many holders of courtesy titles have had successful careers in the House of Commons: for instance, the Marquess of Hartington, heir to the seventh Duke of Devonshire, who declined three offers of the prime ministry, normally held by a member of the House of Commons, and Lord John Russell, younger son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, who in later life accepted an earldom, and moved to the House of Lords; from having been Lord John Russell, he became Lord Russell. 7.) In 1958, for the first time, life (non-hereditary) peerages, in the grade of baron or baroness, were permitted to be created. Since 1963 peers have been permitted to renounce their titles, for themselves though not for their heirs. The first two to do so were Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, , who, as , pursued a lively career in the House of Commons as a left-wing firebrand, and Quintin Hogg, , who after a time as a commoner, was again raised to the peerage, this time as a , Baron Hailsham, on being appointed Lord Chancellor, a post which, as Speaker of the House of Lords, requires a peerage. Likewise, the fourteenth , in order to become prime minister, disclaimed his earldom (though retaining knighthood), becoming Alec Douglas-Home. After his tenure as prime minister, he too accepted a life peerage as Baron Home, and returned to the House of Lords. 8.) Daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls are “Lady” with their given and family names. If they marry a commoner, they substitute their husband’s family name for their own, but retain the “Lady Mary” or whatever it is. On marrying a peer, they take the normal designation of a peer’s wife. Thus Waugh’s friend Lady Diana Manners, daughter of the Duke of Rutland, on marrying Mr. Alfred , became . When her husband was raised file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

to the peerage as Viscount Norwich, she became Viscountess Norwich (thus, as Waugh twitted her, dropping a notch or two in the official table of precedence). Although the wife of a peer takes the female equivalent of her husband’s title, the marriage of a titled lady does not confer any title on her husband (a nice instance of reverse sexual discrimination). 9.) Dukes and duchesses are formally referred to as “Your Grace” (as are the Archbishops of Canterbury and York). Marquesses and marchionesses are “Most Honourable”; other peers and peeresses are “Right Honourable.” “Lord” and “Lady” may be used informally for peers of the rank of marquess and below (dukes and duchesses are never “Lord” or “Lady” So-and-so). Of course, among intimate friends, even these are dropped, and the Earl of Brideshead becomes merely “Brideshead” or “Bridey” (we are never told his first name), and Lady Julia Flyte “Julia.” Waugh wrote an amusing letter to the eight-year-old Viscount Asquith, heir to the Earldom of Oxford, adjuring him to insist that his younger siblings address him by his courtesy title “Asquith” rather than by his baptismal name, “Raymond.” Only recently, says Waugh, has this custom “deplorably crept in.” 10.) Signatures and regalia. Peers, “courtesy” peers, and peeresses in their own right merely sign with their titles—e.g., “Marchmain,” “Brideshead.” Peeresses by marriage sign with their title preceded by their given name or initial—“Teresa Marchmain.” (She could never have been “Lady Teresa Marchmain.” Before her marriage, as the daughter of a high-ranking peerage family, she may have been “Lady Teresa Blank,” but on her marriage to the marquess she became “Lady Marchmain.”) “Courtesy” lords and ladies omit those titles from their signatures —“Sebastian Flyte,” “Celia Ryder”—as do ennobled actors and writers in playbills and on title pages of books: “Laurence Olivier,” not “Lord Olivier”; “Elizabeth Longford,” not “the Countess of Longford.” Archbishops and bishops of the older English dioceses use abbreviations of the Latin names of those dioceses: e.g. “Robert Cantuar” (= Cantuarensis, Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury), “John Ebor” (= Eboracensis, John Habgood, former Archbishop of York, now Baron Habgood). Paul Pennyfeather’s friend Stubbs displays undergraduate humor by signing the visitor’s book at a tea-room “Randall Cantuar” (Randall Davison, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1930) ( 3:7). At the coronation of a sovereign, at the moment the is placed on his or her head, the peers and peeresses their . That of a duke is a gold circlet surmounted by stylized strawberry leaves; of marquesses by strawberry leaves alternating with balls; of earls, strawberry leaves alternating with balls raised on “points”; of viscounts, sixteen balls; of barons, eight balls. Waugh makes a slight slip when the villagers in Brideshead have to change the earl’s coronets on the bunting erected to celebrate Lord Brideshead’s marriage to a marquess’s, to celebrate Lord Marchmain’s homecoming, “obliterating the Earl’s points and stenciling balls and strawberry leaves” (Brideshead 2:5). The coronation robes of peers are scarlet, trimmed with, for dukes, four rows of ermine; for marquesses, three and a half; for earls, three; for viscounts and barons, two. At the opening of Parliament each year, they wear their parliamentary robes, somewhat less elaborate than the coronation robes, but bearing the same number of white bands. There are good illustrations of all these in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, under “Crown” and “Robes.” 11.) “Royals.” A special category of titles is that connected with the royal family. The sons and daughters of the sovereign (“Her Majesty”), and the sons and daughters of sons (but not of daughters) of the sovereign are, from birth, designated “” or “” with the given name, and are referred to as “His” or “Her Royal Highness.” (Children of daughters of the sovereign take their titles, if any, from their fathers; thus the children of Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, formerly married to Mr. Mark Phillips, are Mr. Peter and Miss Zara Phillips.) These honorifics do not, however, make their holders legally members of the peerage. When they reach an appropriate age, the sovereign may confer other titles on them; on the oldest son, that of Prince of Wales; on the oldest daughter (unless the title is already held by an older member of the family), that of Princess Royal. The other sons may be created “royal dukes.” Certain regional designations are by tradition reserved for them; those in use as this is written are Cornwall (which the future Prince of Wales inherits at birth), York (traditionally the title of

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the second son), Gloucester, Kent, and Edinburgh (the dukedom specifically created for the queen’s husband). Others used in the past have been Albany, Cambridge, Clarence, Connaught, Cumberland, and Sussex. Their holders may, if of age, sit in the House of Lords and take part in debate and voting, and in the past sometimes have, but now seldom do, in order that the Crown may be insulated from political controversy. They sign themselves simply by their given names; thus the famous Instrument of Abdication of Edward VIII bears the signatures of his brothers as witnesses, “Albert,” “Henry,” “George,” respectively the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and Kent. If the father has a territorial title, it is added to that of his children: thus the sons of the present Prince of Wales are Prince William of Wales and Prince Henry of Wales. There were, at the time of writing, five royal dukes (including the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall), 26 dukes, 36 marquesses, 190 earls, 121 viscounts, around 450 hereditary barons, and around 350 life barons and baronesses. Some 4000 commoners ( and knights) were “Sir”; there were some 200 “” (the female equivalent of “Sir”). 12.) Administrative and judicial titles. As well as the peers, the prefix “Lord” is attached to numerous official appointments. It is not a personal designation (except for Scottish judges): a Mr. Smith who is appointed, say, Lord Privy Seal remains Mr. Smith and does not become “Lord Smith.” Among these appointments are those of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury (members of the five-person commission for executing the archaic office of Lord High Treasurer). The Prime Minister is normally the First Lord of the Treasury, although the day-to- day business of government finance is now conducted by the second-ranking commissioner, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Similarly, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (First Lord, First Sea Lord, etc.) execute the office of Lord High Admiral. Other such offices are those of the Lord High Chancellor (head of the legal system), Lord President of the (Privy) Council, Lord (keeper of the) Privy Seal (normally members of the Cabinet, with various duties); the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chamberlain (in charge of court ceremonial), the Lord Advocate (attorney-general for Scotland), and the Lords Lieutenant of the various (mainly a ceremonial office). Judges of the Scottish Court of Session are designated “Lord” with either their family name or that of some family estate. Thus James Boswell’s father, Alexander Boswell, was “Lord Auchinleck,” though this did not make him a peer, nor could James inherit the title or be designated “the Honourable.” The chief executives of the larger cities are “Lord Mayor,” and in Scotland “Lord Provost.” The appellation “Lord” continues to be applied to women holding such appointments: thus (at the time of writing) the First Lord of the Treasury was Mrs. (simultaneously Prime Minister, 1979-1990, now Baroness Thatcher), and there are women Lord Mayors, Lord Provosts, and Lords Lieutenant. Diocesan (not suffragan) bishops of the Church of England are “Lord Bishop” and are formally addressed as “My Lord.” So (in court) are the judges of the High Court of Justice and the Lords Justices of (the court of) Appeal, although they do not usually hold the peerage title of “Lord.” “” no longer carries any official status. Nowadays it means only the owner of an extensive piece of property which in feudal times was granted by the Crown the status of “manor” and whose tenants were subject to the jurisdiction of a manorial court of justice, headed by the “lord of the manor.”

Titled Characters in Waugh Royal Dukes. There is a cameo appearance by Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Clarence, who have been prevailed on to lend their patronage to the exhibition of Charles Ryder’s paintings (Brideshead 2:2). Lady Celia Ryder curtsies to them, as women are expected to do. The Duke’s reaction to Charles’s tropical paintings is “Pretty hot out there I should think…. Makes me feel quite uncomfortable in my great-coat.” HRH may have been modeled on the late Duke of Gloucester (1900-1974), who was not noted for his intellect. He and his brothers the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) and the Duke of Kent are the unmarried “young ” whom Lady Julia Flyte seems to regret that her Catholicism prevents her from marrying (Brideshead 1:7). The Act of Settlement, 1701, provides that the sovereign and the sovereign’s consort must be Protestants, and any prospective heir who is or marries a Roman Catholic forfeits his or her claim to the throne. Mr. Bentley, the publisher, maintains file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

that he is descended (illegitimately) from a real Duke of Clarence (1765-1837; third son of George III, later King William IV, who indeed had a large family of illegitimate children) (POMF 1:7). The godfather of Lady Elizabeth Albright, mother of the shirt-stealer Charles, was the Duke of Connaught (1850-1942), Queen Victoria’s third son (Basil Seal 4). The unpleasant Mrs. Kent-Cumberland (“Winner Takes All”) is given the names of two royal dukedoms. The two army transports whose confusion adds to the woes of Cedric Lyne are the Duchess of Clarence and the Duchess of Cumberland (POMF 3:4). Waugh actually wrote much of the novel aboard the Duchess of Richmond en route from the to Britain; “Richmond” was a title of the future King Henry VII, as readers will recall from Shakespeare’s Richard III, and was later conferred on illegitimate scions of the royal family. Dukes. The chief representatives are the Duke and Duchess of Stayle (significant name), who appear in a number of Waugh’s stories, first when the Duchess bullies her oldest daughter Lady Ursula (the family name is not given) into marriage with Edward, Earl of Throbbing ( 8). A younger daughter, Lady Elizabeth, marries Clarence Albright (Basil Seal 4). In Black Mischief, Waugh makes fun of the British peerage by conferring titles on barbaric Azanians, whose military leader, the adventurer General Connolly, is created Duke of Ukaka, and signs himself, correctly, “Ukaka C-in-C” (i.e., “Commander-in-Chief”; a peer who holds some high military or government appointment adds an abbreviation of that appointment to his signature— thus “Montgomery FM” (Viscount Montgomery, Field Marshal). On Connolly’s luggage, after his expulsion from Azania, one can see, in Waugh’s illustration, the strawberry leaves of a duke’s . Lottie Crump “is true to the sound old snobbery of pounds sterling and strawberry leaves” (Vile Bodies 3). Marquesses. The best known, of course, is the Marquess of Marchmain in , whose family provides a great deal of the novel’s plot. His oldest son and heir bears the courtesy title of Earl of Brideshead (we are never told his Christian name); after his father’s death he succeeds as Marquess. The other children, Lord Sebastian, Lady Julia, and Lady Cordelia, figure prominently in the novel. After her marriage to Mr. Rex Mottram, Lady Julia Flyte becomes Lady Julia Mottram, but after their divorce resumes her name of Lady Julia Flyte. Waugh apparently first planned to make the head of the family an earl, in which case the younger son would have been not “Lord” but “the Honourable” Sebastian Flyte, although Ladies Julia and Cordelia would retain those honorifics. Waugh may have been influenced by the Marquess of Steyne (stain?) in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, whose family circumstances closely resemble those of Lord Marchmain’s: the Marquess a cynical, worldly, amoral man, estranged from his devoutly Catholic Marchioness, with two sons, the elder, the Earl of Gaunt, detesting and detested by his father, the younger, Lord George Gaunt, eventually becoming insane. On his deathbed, Lord Marchmain reflects on the history of the peerages in his family. Speaking of the ancient family tombs, he remarks, “We were knights then, barons since [the battle of] Agincourt [1415]; the larger honours came with the [Protestant King] Georges. They came the last and they’ll go the first; the barony descends in the female line; when Brideshead is buried—he married late [1st edition; the 2nd substitutes, more accurately, “when all of you are dead”]—Julia’s son will be called by the name his fathers bore before the fat days” (Brideshead 2:5). An interesting point of peerage law: the Marquessate and Earldom, descending in the male line, will become extinct. If Julia and Cordelia survive the childless Brideshead, the ancient Barony will fall into abeyance between the two daughters; if Julia should survive Cordelia, she would become the Baroness Flyte (or whatever the title is) in her own right, and her son (by whom, one wonders) would inherit the Barony after her death. Fun is provided in Vile Bodies when a gossip columnist is given the title Marquess of Vanburgh and a host of other hereditary titles. In the 1920s, London newspapers liked to engage titled persons as columnists: Lord Kilbannock (another significant title; a “bannock” is a plebeian Scottish form of bread) in may be based on Waugh’s friend Patrick Balfour, later Lord Kinross, who once acted in that capacity, as did the Marquess of Donegall. The head of the Rex family in A Handful of Dust, Lord St Cloud, maybe either a marquess or an earl (but not a duke; his mother is referred to as Lady St Cloud): his sister is Lady Brenda Last (née Rex). file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

Earls. There are a fair number in Waugh’s writings. They include the fatuous Earl of Circumference and his overbearing Countess (the title no doubt refers to her physique), with their unfortunate little heir, Lord Tangent (more brilliant nomenclature) in Decline and Fall; the Earl of Balcairn, like his rival Lord Vanburgh a gossip columnist, who commits suicide after being detected in disguise at Lady Metroland’s revival party (his mother, now Mrs. Panrast, is a notorious Lesbian) in Vile Bodies; Peter, Earl of Pastmaster (né Beste-Chetwynde), son of Lady Metroland by her first marriage, who succeeds his uncle, the previous Earl, and who appears in Decline and Fall, Put Out More Flags, and Basil Seal Rides Again; his wife, formerly Lady Molly Meadowes, the daughter of Lord Granchester, who might be either a marquess or an earl (but not a duke; his wife is Lady Granchester), becomes the Countess of Pastmaster. Lady Betty, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Stayle, another candidate for Peter’s hand, reappears as Lady Elizabeth Albright in Basil Seals Rides Again. In Vile Bodies, we have Edward, Earl of Throbbing, a dull and respectable diplomat, unlike his mother, the Dowager Countess (demoted by one critic to “Lady Fanny Throbbing”), a superannuated promiscuous beauty from Edward VII’s day; his father the late Earl, who died of drug addiction (if he was Edward’s father: when Lady Throbbing confesses her sins at Mrs. Ape’s revival meeting, the editor receiving Lord Balcairn’s fictional report instructs an underling to look up photographs of all three candidates); his brother, the Honourable Miles Malpractice, a well-known homosexual- about-town; his sister, formerly one of Lady Metroland’s employees in her South American chain of brothels. If the charge against Waugh of snobbery implies admiration for the upper levels of society, a glance at the Malpractice family should cause one to rethink it. “What a set!” as Matthew Arnold said of the Shelley circle. Perhaps unexpectedly, a historical Earl has a tiny cameo role in Brideshead. Lord Marchmain, on his deathbed, having the daily newspaper read to him in 1939 and reminiscing, remarks “Irwin … I knew him—a mediocre fellow” (2:5). The reference is to Edward Wood (1881-1959), , in the Cabinet of Neville Chamberlain and a supporter of “appeasement,” ’s chief rival for the prime ministry in 1940, and later ambassador to the United States. Lord Marchmain contemptuously refers to him by his earlier title, Lord Irwin, conferred when he was appointed viceroy of India and through his actions created much controversy. Viscounts. They tend to be upwardly mobile plebeians on the make: Lord Metroland, Margot’s second husband, an enterprising politician, and the Press Lords Copper and Monomark (more significant nomenclature: “Metroland” was an advertising gimmick coined by the Metropolitan Railway Company to persuade potential customers to settle in the outer suburbs of London and make use of their commuter services; “Monomark” was another advertising gimmick coined by a company which, for a fee, would provide a unique number for customers to engrave on their valuables, so as to facilitate retrieval in case of burglary). When A. J. P. Taylor, biographer of Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express, for which Waugh once worked, asked Waugh whether Lord Copper was based on Beaverbrook, Waugh denied it. Nevertheless, Taylor points out, Beaverbrook was familiar with the expression “Up to a point,” meaning “No.” “Boy,” Viscount Mulcaster, and his sister Lady Celia, who marries Charles Ryder (their family name is not disclosed), are probably children of an earl (or conceivably duke or marquess). Mulcaster’s Viscountcy must be a courtesy title; if it were a substantive one and he were head of the family, his sister would not be “Lady Celia” but merely “the Honourable Celia.” Baronets. Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington appears in Decline and Fall, Black Mischief, Put Out More Flags, and Basil Seal Rides Again. Students have sometimes asked what so frivolous a youth of twenty-one could have done to deserve being made a “Sir.” The answer is of course “Nothing,” except having inherited the title from his late father. Another is Sir James Brown, alternating Prime Minister with Mr. Walter Outrage (the joke is probably on the alternating regimes of Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald in the late 1920s and early 1930s) in Vile Bodies. The idea of creating hereditary “” occurred to King James I in the early seventeenth century, to enable him to raise a considerable sum of money by selling them to aspirants to higher social rank. file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

Knights. Two Hollywood knights appear in The Loved One, Sir Ambrose Abercrombie and Sir Francis Hinsley. Sir Ambrose looks down on Sir Francis as a “Lloyd George creation”—that Prime Minister was notorious for recommending titles for contributors to his private campaign chest. (They are said to have been inspired by Sir C. Aubrey Smith, a British pioneer of the studios.) Sir Christopher Seal, father of Basil, was rewarded for his services as Chief Whip of the Conservative Party (POMF 1:6); Sir Samson Courteney is British envoy extraordinary to Azania in Black Mischief; Sir John Courteney Boot, by mistake, is made a KCB (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath) instead of William Boot (Scoop 3:1:4); Sir Ralph Brompton, the left-wing diplomat in Unconditional Surrender (1:1), is supposedly modeled on Sir , who once stood as a Socialist candidate in a British election (in the hope, he freely admitted in his diaries, of being promoted to a peerage by the Labour Government), but was defeated and disappointed of his peerage. The female equivalent of knighthood is the award of the title “” instead of “Sir,” borne by Dame Mildred Porch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Black Mischief (6). “Honourables.” The Hon. Agatha Runcible is the daughter of Lord (Viscount or Baron) Chasm in Vile Bodies; the Hon. William Bland is the honorary (i.e., unpaid) attaché to the British legation in Azania in Black Mischief. When the mother of Waugh’s off-and-on friend, Randolph Churchill, was given a life peerage as Baroness Spencer-Churchill, Waugh twitted that he would now have to call him “the Honourable Randolph.” Paradoxically, “Right Honourable” is a less prestigious epithet than merely “Honourable.” “Right Honourable” is the designation (apart from peers) of members of the Queen’s Privy Council, a huge and ancient body, now with very few governmental functions, to which any successful politician who reaches Cabinet rank is automatically appointed. It is the designation of Sir Humphrey Maltravers, Minister of Transportation and later Home Secretary and Viscount Metroland in Decline and Fall, and of Walter Outrage, occasional Prime Minister in Vile Bodies. To be an “Honourable,” you have to be born the child of a peer. Other Distinctions. The highest honour awarded by the Crown is the Victoria Cross for gallantry in military, naval, or air action, for which Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was recommended (Men at Arms 1:2). The mysterious Mr. Baldwin recommended his batman in , Cuthbert, now his valet and bodyguard, for the VC (Scoop 1:3:7). It takes precedence even over the highest knighthood, that of the Garter, usually awarded only to high-ranking noblemen and royalty. At first Waugh had Mr. Outrage “fingering his Order of the Garter” (Vile Bodies 8), but realizing that this would make him “Sir Walter,” demoted him to the Order of Merit. The OM, restricted to a membership of 24, carries with it no title but a great deal of prestige. The opening of Basil Seal Rides Again describes a celebration for its attainment by Ambrose Silk.

Notes [1] Donald Greene (1914-1997) was a distinguished scholar of eighteenth-century literature and Samuel Johnson in particular. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, he published several essays in the Waugh Newsletter. The above essay, written in the 1980s, has never before been published, though a few of its observations also appear in Professor Greene’s “A Partiality for Lords: Evelyn Waugh and Snobbery,” American Scholar 58.3 (Summer 1989): 444-59, and “Titles of Rank in Waugh,” Evelyn Waugh Newsletter 24.1 (1990): 1-3. The text is based on an uncorrected typescript Professor Greene sent to Robert Murray Davis, Associate Editor of the Newsletter. [2] The House of Lords Act of 1999 expelled all but 92 hereditary peers. Most of the members, some 600, are now life peers.

Lad Zap: Charles Ryder and a Holy Plot of Love by A8041AA

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Less is Waugh and the slightest details of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) may possess transcendent importance. Take the “meagre” possessions Charles Ryder sets out proudly in his chambers in his first term at Oxford. Inter alia is the “Medici Press edition of A Shropshire Lad.” The book is never mentioned again, and its author is never mentioned at all, yet A. E. Housman (1859-1936) and his Lad are of transcendent importance in Charles’s religious development—in a wholly negative way. The philosophy they espouse is the antithesis of the Catholicism Charles will later embrace. Man’s destiny, for Housman and the lad Ryder, is to be “dead and gone” (poem LXIII): the only eternity that awaits us is an eternity of oblivion, a “house of dust” (XII) where “morn is all the same as night” (XLIII) and where we “never shall arise” (XLVI). In the mean time: “Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink / For fellows whom it hurts to think: / Look into the pewter pot / To see the world as the world’s not” (LXII). And when ale fails: “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now / Is hung with bloom along the bough, / And stands about the woodland ride / Wearing white for Eastertide” (II). Like a good Catholic, Housman’s Lad preaches three great balms for Weltschmerz: alcohol, beauty, and love. Unlike a good Catholic, he means alcohol for drunkenness, not for communion; the beauty of the physical world, not of the spiritual; and love of man, not of God. And he means physical love: Housman was homosexual and the murmurs of his true nature in A Shropshire Lad would have been loud enough in Charles’s love-starved ears: “But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan / And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told / They carry back bright to the corner the mintage of man, / The lads that will die in their glory and never be old” (XXIII). Sebastian Flyte is bright from the corner and might even have caught Housman’s discerning eye in the homosexual demi-monde at some “louche” bar in London or Venice. By then, Sebastian’s embraces could have been only consolation for the middle-aged professor of Latin, not fulfillment. Like Charles, Housman fell in love at Oxford; unlike Charles, his first love, for the scientist-athlete Moses Jackson, was his last, and he never progressed from love for lad to love for lady to love for Lord, and never saw how each love contained the seed of the next. Nor does Sebastian fulfill Housman’s preferred destiny for young and beautiful males: he does not die in his glory, but batters his mintage with drink and debauchery, growing dinted and tarnished far from home and the family into which he has introduced Charles. His youngest sister Cordelia reports the wreck of his beauty to Charles but remembers her interlocutor’s laddish sensibilities and consoles him with the beauty of Sebastian’s monastery asylum. But for her, her mother, and her elder brother, Sebastian’s fate is not infinitely sad. They have Catholicism and its transcendent promise of life beyond ruined life and glory beyond squandered youth. And by his love for pagan Sebastian and apostate sister Julia, Charles is being reeled in by Waugh’s piscatorial God, towards the conversion that will console him for the loss of wife, children, and friendship in a world ruled by brutes and barbarians. The neo-pagan lad will depart; the palaeo- Catholic man will take his place, no longer believing that: “malt does more than Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man.” Julia is another soul-fish pulled from Brideshead’s pool: she declines to marry Charles and he loses the aristocratic future that had dazzled his bourgeois eyes. Brideshead itself, which he once thought to own and bequeath, is defiled by the barbarian army, and it is a lamp, not a lad, that lifts Charles from his Hooper-induced gloom. The art nouveau chapel had not been to his liking; its altar-lamp is of “deplorable design,” yet the religion celebrated therein and thereby transcends aesthetics and will outlive Brideshead’s deplorable and delicious designs alike. So Charles comes to believe, and if Waugh himself resumed his laddish ways in later life, “Looking into the pewter pot / To see the world as the world’s not,” it was because the world seemed to have lost the key of transcendence. Vat 2, the modernizing Second Vatican Council, had emptied into the vintage of Catholicism, and Waugh returned to real alcohol to “sain” (XIV) his blistered tongue. Was Charles too driven back to the drunkenness of his youth? A. E. Housman might have been addressing both, but particularly the Flyte-dazzled, “charm”-struck Charles, in the sixth of his More Poems (1936): “I to my perils / Of cheat and charmer / Came clad in armour / By stars benign. / Hope lies to mortals / And most believe her, / But man’s deceiver / Was never mine.” The Shropshire Lad was zapped, but his youthful disciples, Charles Ryder and Evelyn Waugh, saw him resurrected after all, to sing again: “June suns, you cannot store file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

them / To warm the winter’s cold, / The lad that hopes for heaven / Shall fill his mouth with mould” (More Poems XXII).

Editor’s Note: A8041AA, formerly known as 0800006408, was christened Stephen Whittle and is currently serving a two-year sentence for blasphemy at H.M.P. Everthorpe in East Yorkshire, England. He passes his time reading, meditating, and making matchstick polyhedra.

Poems from Black Mischief by James Morris

The Importance of Being Ernest

He couldn’t stomach Prudence 'stewed to pulp amid peppers and aromatic roots' It made him sick.

He found ‘unsavory’ (his own word) but relished quoting-- ‘Please help with my ’

It wasn’t to his taste-- The two humane ladies being raped.

He found ‘Good Friday Luncheon’ Unpalatable.

He left The Tablet In disgrace.

Indigestion was to blame, According to Waugh.

Poor old Ernest Oldmeadow, With his poor old name.

Lady Courtenay

Preparations, war footing, Lady Courtenay, Takes a cutting.

Streets deserted, barricades, Lady Courtenay, Walks her maze.

Shutters down, doors locked, Lady Courtenay, Trims the box.

Chaos, rank disorder, Lady Courtenay, Tends a border.

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Arms chopped off, noses, Lady Courtenay, Prunes the roses.

Atrocities, mass hysteria, Lady Courtenay, Trains the wisteria.

Rude Awakening

Transported back to primeval seas, Riding sea-serpents at his ease, Round 'vast, unpeopled crags', Sir Samson in his bath.

At the dawn of Creation ... Such a treat.

'Knocks upon the door' 'A Mr.Walker Sir' The business of the Legation.

A Meal of It

They are described as anthropophagus for starters. Or, if you please, the hors-d'oeuvres.

Seyid is served up then, Garnished with Seth's reaction.

Connolly's men eating their boots; A hint of what's to come.

Basil leaves no doubt-- 'I'd like to eat you'

Prudence then, It's all well prepared.

A Conversation at Anchorage House by Benjamin D. Garlick

Evelyn Waugh’s satirical novel Vile Bodies is filled with numerous passages that have captured the attention of readers since the story was published in 1930. Critics have debated the importance of Adam’s “vile bodies” reflection in chapter VIII, the impact of Ginger and Nina’s aerial musings about England in chapter XII, and the meaning of Agatha Runcible’s dream in chapter XII in relation to the work as a whole. The symbolism Waugh presents in each of these passages has a deep impact on the reader. A less famous but equally important scene is the conversation between Mr. Outrage, Lord Metroland, and Father Rothschild at Anchorage House file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

in chapter VIII. The conversation, particularly the exchange between Father Rothschild and Mr. Outrage, plays a key role in interpreting the entire novel. Specifically, this exchange helps to explain the relationship between the Bright Young Things and the seeming demise of British society. In the author’s note to the 1958 edition, Waugh dates this passage as the night of December 2nd, roughly halfway through the novel. Waugh juxtaposes the night’s two primary events: “That same evening while Adam and Nina sat on the deck of the dirigible a party of quite a different sort was being given at Anchorage House” (174). Waugh sets the stage for the discussion between the three men in the shadow of one of the most outlandish parties perpetrated by the Bright Young Things. Later, the Prime Minister, Mr. Outrage, is pictured mourning the end of his escapades with the Baroness Yoshiwara: “Another episode in his life was closed, another of those tantalizing glimpses of felicity capriciously withdrawn” (181). Outrage questions his role in life: “had he wings, was he free and unconfined, was he born for eternity?” (181). His thought is interrupted as he is joined by Lord Metroland and Father Rothschild. Rothschild, a Jesuit priest, is introduced on the first page of the novel, gazing down observantly at the passengers as they board the steamer. The reader views his character through the eyes of his former butler in chapter III: “It would be unlike [the butler] to pretend that he ever really liked the embryo Jesuit who was ‘too clever by half,’ given to asking extraordinary questions, and endowed with a penetrating acumen in the detection of falsehood and exaggeration” (42). The three men broach the hottest topic of the night at the Anchorage party, the “younger generation.” Lord Metroland wonders aloud, “What does all this [business of government] stand for if there’s going to be no one to carry it on?”(182). In response, Outrage suggests, “As far as I’m concerned it stands for a damned lot of hard work and precious little in return. If those young people can find a way to get on without it, good luck to them.” He proceeds to set up one of the dichotomies of the novel, the classification of the Bright Young Things as either a cause of the decline of British society or an endemic result of other influences, a debate that becomes central: “I don’t understand them, and I don’t want to. They had a chance after the war that no generation has ever had. There was a whole civilization to be saved and remade--and all they seem to do is play the fool” (183). In response to Outrage’s claim that the Bright Young Things are culpable, Rothschild offers an opposing view: “Don’t you think that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don’t think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence” (183). Rothschild’s remarks are eye-opening in two respects. First is his idea that the young people are merely a product of their experiences in life. While they were likely too young to have participated meaningfully in the First World War, Rothschild suggests that the fallout has strongly affected the hopes and aspirations of the Bright Young Things. Second is the striking application of his final thought, that the young “are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence,” to Outrage’s musings on his own permanence: “Was Mr. Outrage an immortal soul … was he born for eternity?”(181). Rothschild could not have access to these private thoughts, and Outrage fails to compare himself to the Bright Young Things, though he too had been hungering for permanence before his solitude was interrupted by Rothschild and Metroland. Outrage fails to appreciate the similarity between his own doubt as Prime Minister and the doubt of the younger generation about what their future may hold. Rothschild continues with an explanation of the younger generation’s behavior: “They won’t make the best of a bad job nowadays … these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, ‘if a thing’s not worth doing well, it’s not worth doing it at all.’ It makes things very difficult for them” (183-84). Admitting that a perspective other than his own might be correct, Rothschild demonstrates openness and acceptance that are in short supply in the novel. Outrage replies, “Good heavens, I should think it did. What a darned silly principle … if one didn’t do anything that wasn’t worth doing well … what would one do? I’ve always maintained that success in this world depends on knowing exactly how little effort each job is worth” (184). In response to a question from Outrage, file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

Rothschild explains what he means by “historical” in terms of the looming war. Ironically, because of the minimum effort he expends, the prime minister knows nothing about war. As Rothschild explains, “No one talks about it, and no one wants it. No one talks about it because no one wants it. They’re all afraid to breathe a word about it … wars don’t start nowadays because people want them.” He continues, “there is a radical instability in our whole world- order, and soon we shall all be walking into the jaws of destruction again” (185). This sobering revelation lends credence to Rothschild’s views on the fears of the young about the future. Having remained silent through most of the exchange, Metroland chimes in with the Prime Minister: “I don’t see how all that explains why my stepson should drink like a fish and go about everywhere with a negress” (185). Rothschild, perhaps sensing futility, ends the conversation with a final statement: “I think they’re connected, you know, but it’s all very difficult.” The trio goes their separate ways, each having taken something different from the discussion. Characteristically, Father Rothschild disappears “into the night, for he had many people to see and much business to transact before he went to bed.” Lord Metroland leaves the discussion in a depressed , somewhat shaken, thinking “What a lot of nonsense Rothschild had talked. At least he hoped it was nonsense” (186). At least one topic discussed at Anchorage House was not nonsense. The quiet fears of a generation come hauntingly true with the arrival of the next great war prophesied by Father Rothschild. Adam, representative of his generation, sits upon “a splintered tree stump in the biggest battlefield in the history of the world” as he reads a letter from Nina (314). Adam bears a disproportionate burden of the hardship faced by his generation, as he loses the woman he once loved and simultaneously is pressed into service. The war appears not to have significantly altered the views of either party. Nina writes, “I’m sick such a lot because of this baby, but everyone says it’s patriotic to have babies in war time. Why?” (315). This simple question suggests continuation of the life Nina has been living, a stream of “why’s” and “so what’s” directed at the norms of postwar British society. On the battlefield, Adam encounters the Drunk Major who at one point represented the key to Adam’s marriage to Nina, which would have signaled a shift towards a more traditional life. The Drunk Major, now a General, is finally able to repay the money owed to Adam, although wartime scrip is worth little more than the ink used to print the bills. “[Worth] about nothing,” the major tells Adam. “Still, I may as well give you a cheque. It’ll buy you a couple of drinks and a newspaper” (317). As Adam and the Major converse at the end of the novel, Waugh writes “And presently, like a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to return” (321). Adam and the Major meet in the eye of the storm, a lull in the battle, a surreal and outlandish moment. The Bright Young Things also find themselves, consciously or unconsciously, occupying the eye of the typhoon of modern existence. After riding out the torrent of the war to end all wars, a brief calm comes over society. Surrounded on all sides by modern existence and global conflict, the Bright Young Things are in an equally surreal and outlandish predicament. Just as Adam and the Major make the most of bizarre circumstances as they sip champagne on a scorched and barren battlefield, the Bright Young Things express the absurdity of their place in history by living their wild life. Seemingly only Father Rothschild joins Waugh and the reader in sympathizing with their perspective. Waugh’s satirical voice is most evident as he presents the reasons for the rise and fall of the Bright Young Things during a seemingly simple conversation at Anchorage House. This question about the responsibility of the Bright Young Things in the downfall of British society contributes to the effect of the novel. Through Rothschild, one of the few observant characters, and the idea that the actions of the younger generation follow logically from events, Waugh makes a strong statement about British society. This social commentary avoids any moralizing and does not support or denounce the Bright Young Things. Rather, Waugh satirizes society’s condemnation of the Bright Young Things, as a Jesuit priest defends the logic of their rambunctious lifestyle. While it is unlikely that this logic informs the actions of the Bright Young Things, it encourages the reader to sympathize with them. At this pivotal point in the novel, on the cusp of unraveling the Bright Young Lifestyle, readers feel a connection that keeps them engaged in and saddened by the eventual demise of the “Bright Young Things.”

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Works Cited Waugh, Evelyn. Vile Bodies. 1930. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958.

Editor's note: This essay won the Fifth Annual Evelyn Waugh Undergraduate Essay Contest. Benjamin D. Garlick is a cadet at the United States Military Academy. He plans to major in economics and to enter the infantry. Ben is also on the sport-parachuting team at West Point.

Abstracts of Japanese Essays on Evelyn Waugh, 1970-1977 by Yoshiharu Usui

Yoshida, Seiichi. "Evurin Wo: Shoki no Nisaku no Sekai [Evelyn Waugh: The World of His First Two Novels]." Yokohama Shiritsu Daigaku Ronso [Bulletin of Yokohama City University] 21.2-3 (1970): 1-22. Abstract: Evelyn Waugh’s first two novels do not suggest any moral decision in a world without order and value. He does not protect anyone or anything with faith, creed, or dogma. His attitude is also ambivalent. In this sense, the novels are not legitimate satire. Waugh turns the chaos of the real world into a farce of unrestrained imagination, eccentric image, and detached attitude. Waugh’s comic mind doesn’t care to protest or protect a distinctive standpoint. To Waugh, the real world is a source of the eccentric image that arouses laughter. Waugh does not see the world as well-organized but as whirling chaos. His skill is far superior to that of legitimate satirists. Their works will fade once their reference to current events is lost.

Kakigahara, Mie. "Evurin Wo no sakuhin ni miru kokkeisa no tokucho [Characteristics of Comicality in Evelyn Waugh’s Works]." Eibungaku to eigogaku [English Literature and Language] 9 (1971): 81-92. Abstract: Every Evelyn Waugh work has unique comicality. His comicality is not just humorous. Evelyn Waugh is often compared with P. G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse created a serene, pastoral world. It was isolated from reality. Because his readers expected happy endings, they did not have to worry about his characters’ troubles. Wodehouse’s works had an optimistic view of life. Waugh’s works have hardship we cannot see in Wodehouse’s works. Where does the hardship come from? Waugh created his world based on his real experience. We know the world. The great past eroded in modern times after World War I. Waugh’s readers compare their attitude to reality with Waugh’s attitude to reality. Waugh makes his readers think about the reality behind his comedy. Waugh pointed out the instability of individuals in modern society.

Kiyota, Ikuo. "Evelyn Waugh no Warai ni Tsuite: Decline and Fall no Bawai [The Comic Elements in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall].” Bulletin of Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University 13 (1972): 93-102. Abstract: This novel has elements of picaresque novels in terms of the plot and the quality of “laugh.” One might remember Voltaire’s Candide, ou l’Optimisme, but the flavor is totally different. It depends on whether the author puts morality into the work or not. Different from Candide, Paul does not acquire spiritual maturity even though he has numerous bitter experiences. Passive Paul only goes back to the starting point. This is the original world of Waugh, common in his early novels, the world of eternal movement without ending. This novel’s unique “laugh” is characterized by the author’s detachment. The laugh has freedom and no limitations. It is pure nonstop funniness. The author’s utter pitilessness sometimes creates a grotesque “laugh.” Waugh’s calculated nastiness, which shocks his readers, becomes bolder. But because of his precise human observation, this novel does not end as just a farce. This stylish author does not explain the inside of characters, but each character has vitality and a peculiar sense of existence. After they laugh the “laugh” that the characters create, readers feel strange. That is Waugh’s uniqueness and this novel’s attraction. file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

Shinomya, Mitsuru. "Waugh no sakuhin ni tsuite [On Waugh’s Works]." Gengo to buntai: Higashiyama Chiaki Kyojyu kanreki kinen ronbunshu [Language and : Treatises for Professor Chiaki Higashiyama’s Sixtieth Birthday]. Ed. Jun Matsumoto, et al. Osaka: Osaka Kyoiku Shuppan [Educational Publishing Co.], 1974. 229-38. Abstract: A theme of Evelyn Waugh’s works is protagonists’ worlds being crushed by the world of politicians. Waugh’s protagonists live in the world symbolized by words like moneyless, landless, extinct, Dodo, and petrified. Waugh often describes the collapse of traditional houses. The protagonists cannot do anything about the collapse. They just feel aloof. They are raised in imperfect circumstances in fatherless or motherless families. Imperfection arrests the protagonists in adolescence. That accelerates the collapse. Waugh does not express emotion about protagonists. He watches them with a camera’s eye. He keeps, as E. T. Hall says, the far side of social distance. The static rhythm sustains Waugh’s neutral expressions. Linguistically these include repetition of words, omission and repetition of connectives (asyndeton, polysyndeton), parallelism, antithesis, and inversion. When these are excessive, the effect will be ironical or humorous. Neutrality is Waugh’s distinctive feature. The same root unites romanticism, seriousness, humor, and irony.

Suzuki, Shigekazu. "Evurin Wo ni okeru kokkei to fuushi [Absurdity and Satire in Evelyn Waugh]." Simane Daigaku Bunrigakubu Kiyo [Memoirs of the Literature and Science Faculty of Simane University] 9 (1975): 145-63. Abstract: One of the main themes in Evelyn Waugh’s novels is the life of a man of ideals who is behind modern times. At the same time, Waugh is a writer of absurdity. These two tendencies seem opposed. However, even when Waugh writes novels that have serious themes, they contain absurdity. Seriousness and absurdity have detachment from the object in common. This characteristic suggests Waugh’s strong spirit as a writer. Waugh is also famous for satire. Guy Crouchback embodies Waugh’s satire of social conditions. However, even when Waugh writes satire, he delights in writing absurdity. To Waugh, absurdity predominates over satire.

Horiuchi, Terumichi. “Evurin Wo no sekai [The World of Evelyn Waugh]." Aichigakuin Daigaku Ronso [Aichigakuin University Journal, Liberal Arts and Sciences] 24.1 (1976): 69-81. Abstract: Without preaching, Waugh wrote that all of us were born into a world of beauty and died amid ugliness. His novels are divided into three groups. Waugh wrote nonsense novels in his early period. He wrote serious Catholic novels in his middle period. He finally harmonized those two tendencies in the war trilogy of his later years. Waugh was called a dilettante, because he had an attitude of detachment. When Waugh tried to describe himself, he expressed shyness, and when he tried to describe the outside world, he wrote severe satire. Waugh described modern chaos and disorder. Basically he hated them. His faith was firmly connected with steady English life. He made much of the Church and the order it promoted. Many writers took refuge from the war or became intelligence officers. Waugh became a marine and a commando. He protected his homeland by risking his own life.

Tanaka, Ryozo. "Sakka Evurin Wo no haikei ni tsuite no ichikousatsu [A Study of the Background of Writer Evelyn Waugh]." Keio Gijyuku Daigaku Hogaku Kenkyukai Kyouyouronsou [Bulletin of the Faculty of Law, Keio University] 44 (1976): 60-86. Abstract: The English are very eager to retain what they inherit from the past. Waugh was obviously born with this tendency. He thought that the longer things were retained, the more orthodox they were. Tradition and custom are orthodox. Revolution and reformation challenges the orthodox. They are abhorrent and risky to Waugh. In spite of being ignorant of politics, Waugh regarded himself as conservative. He converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. He loved first-rate things, and he volunteered for the Commandos; those inclinations have the same root. Waugh’s education as a writer was almost finished by the end of his Lancing days. Oxford added various experiences. His family, his schools, and his income were moderate influences on his writing. Waugh wrote A Little Learning, but neither

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the culture of his environment nor his ability could be called “little.”

Suzuki, Shigekazu. "Evurin Wo no Decline and Fall ni tsuite [About Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall]." Simane Daigaku Bunrigakubu Kiyo [Memoirs of the Literature and Science Faculty of Simane University] 11 (1977): 65-78. Abstract: Evelyn Waugh intended to write Decline and Fall as a farce, and he intended Brideshead Revisited not to be a farce. The former is a work of farce and caricature like Vile Bodies and Black Mischief. The latter is a ‘fierce little human tragedy’ from the Catholic viewpoint. The author's transfiguration in this work surprised people very much. Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisited are regarded as totally different works. However, when one views all of Waugh’s novels, one can see that Decline and Fall is on the line to Brideshead Revisited and Sword of Honour, whose themes are the way of life and fate of modern Englishmen. Decline and Fall was based on the experience of Waugh’s despair. He introduced a philosophical theme into it, and it emerged as a very funny novel.

Mekata, Morikimi. “Wakaki geijyutsuka no yokogao―Evurin Wo no nikki kara [Review of The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh]." Eigo Seinen [Rising Generation] 122.12 (1977): 594-96. Abstract: The deeper the sin is, the more it becomes proof of God's good graces. Waugh’s diaries remind us of that. Frederic Raphael reviewed the diaries and wrote an article entitled ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Man’ (Sunday Times, 5 Sept. 1976). To know how bad Waugh was, it is not necessary to read this large volume. Alastair Forbes traced it in detail and wrote ‘All about Evelyn’ (Times Literary Supplement, 3 Sept. 1976). These diaries were written by an eminent prose stylist for more than half a century. It will take time to evaluate them in the British literature of diaries. Waugh’s best friend Christopher Sykes almost completely depended on the diaries in Evelyn Waugh: A Biography (1975). It is ironic that publication of the diaries produces the feeling of imitation.

Reviews

The Lygons of Madresfield and Evelyn Waugh Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, by Paula Byrne. London: Harper, 2009. 384 pp. £25. Madresfield: One Home, One Family, One Thousand Years, by Jane Mulvagh. London: Doubleday, 2008. 383 pp. £19.99 hardcover, £9.99 paper. Reviewed by Donat Gallagher, James Cook University.

Paula Byrne’s Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead scores several significant breakthroughs, and I warmly commend it to general readers as well as Waugh enthusiasts. It follows hard on the heels of Jane Mulvagh’s equally interesting Madresfield: One Home, One Family, One Thousand Years. The books are complementary. Byrne’s Mad World is a biography of Waugh that works outward from his close friendship with the Lygons of Madresfield. Mulvagh’s Madresfield begins and ends with (unremarkable) chapters about Waugh; but it is essentially a fascinating history of Madresfield—a country house with a Tudor core and enveloping Neo-Gothic additions—and of the Lygon (earlier and in the USA, Ligon) family. The Lygons, who date from the Norman Conquest, have lived uninterruptedly at Madresfield since the sixteenth century. Because the family has been involved in most of the significant developments of the last four hundred years, their story illuminates every period of English history since Henry VIII. Family divisions over the Reformation; involvement in plots against Mary Tudor; the role of the house and family during the Civil War; a book written by a Lygon about Barbados that explains the wealth pouring into England from the sugar trade and slavery; a younger son’s apprenticeship to the London Grocers Company (which provided money that saved the family); a disputed inheritance from a very distant connection, Jennens, file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

which brought the Lygons sufficient wealth to buy (for £10,000) the Beauchamp earldom (the interminable legal wrangles over this inheritance inspired Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Dickens’s Bleak House); patronage of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with its social implications, heavy financial backing for the Tractarians and deep involvement with Edward Elgar; late Victorian and Edwardian Liberal politics. A more knowledgeable reader might be unimpressed by all this historical information. I was already acquainted with most of the topics raised, but Mulvagh’s revelations proved as riveting as they were enlightening. Evelyn Waugh biography has been plagued by perverse hostility to its subject. The tone was set by Christopher Sykes’s authorized biography, which barely disguised the “terrible difficulty” Sykes found (and confided to Hugh Trevor-Roper) in writing “the life of a man whose every action showed him to be a shit.” Martin Stannard’s two-volume biography offered much new information and some good literary criticism. But in the manner of Michael Shelden exposing , Stannard puts Waugh on trial. Relentlessly he finds discredit even in trivialities that usually fall below a biographer’s notice. One of countless possible examples: Evelyn writes to his elderly mother Catherine promising to visit on her birthday and asking what she would like for a present. Catherine answers that “Darling Evelyn’s” visit will be the best present, but adds that she would like gloves, as she is going to a wedding. By some reverse alchemy Stannard twists this affectionate little exchange into a “poor and lonely” Catherine being forced to beg “timorously” for a pair of gloves; and this despite an excited Catherine’s near contemporaneous letter of thanks for Evelyn’s surprise gift of an expensive dining-room carpet. Hostile interpretation distorts Stannard’s analyses of Waugh’s role in most major matters with correspondingly more serious effect on Waugh’s reputation. The Sykes-Stannard tone has become mandatory for the British quality press and the main Catholic journals to the extent that they appear to have a policy of not printing Waugh’s name without matching insults. Thus Isabel Quigley ends her Tablet review of Mulvagh’s Madresfield: “For the literary, there is plenty about Waugh, not always at his most attractive (a great writer, but what a snob! And what a scope, in such a milieu, for snobbery!)” This apropos a book in which only one comment from a predictable source justifies “unattractive” and in which the rest of the evidence contradicts “snobbery.” Ms Byrne bravely breaks the pattern of biographer as prosecutor and becomes counsel for the defence: “I set out to write this book because I believed that Evelyn Waugh had been persistently misrepresented as a snob and a curmudgeonly misanthropist. I did not recognize Waugh in the popular caricature.” In pursuit of this laudable aim, Byrne presents convincing evidence from the Lygon family, Diana Guinness / Mosley and other early aristocratic friends that young Evelyn did not try to “climb” into their elevated circles; it was they who sought the up-and-coming and hilariously funny young novelist. In a typical passage, Byrne implicitly counters Waugh’s sour critics; she begins her account of Waugh’s trip to the Arctic with Sir Alexander Glen and : “Sandy Glen’s memories reveal Evelyn and Hugh at their best.” But more convincing than any direct arguments justifying Waugh are the fuller portraits Byrne presents of Waugh’s friends and their families. Against a background of fully fleshed- out characters in their own well-established milieu, Waugh appears in an attractively human light, a young man with needs and fears and much to offer his friends. Although it seemed that everything that could be said about Waugh’s Oxford had already been repeated ad nauseam, Byrne has gleaned new information from Waugh’s eccentric (non-aristocratic) friend Terence Greenidge through the pioneering American scholar Charles Linck. This enables her to trace more fully Waugh’s progress from sober scholar to companion of upper-class aesthetes, revealing that chance, not ambition, was the driver. In particular, Byrne brings the Plunket Greene and Lygon families much more fully alive and in doing so makes Waugh, their adopted family member, more comprehensible. Of course, the Lygon family and its house, Madresfield (“MAD” to the young Lygons), are central to Byrne’s and Mulvagh’s books, quite apart from any connection with Waugh. Mulvagh fascinatingly describes the organic growth, generation by generation, of Madresfield from a relatively modest Tudor ’s residence to a Victorian nobleman’s Neo-Gothic file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

mansion, and the history of the Lygon family’s continuous possession, often through the female line. Sometimes a profligate head brought the family close to bankruptcy; then a lucky marriage or a younger son’s success in trade restored the fortune. Relatively late in the day, the surprise Jennens inheritance bought the grand titles. Byrne paints a fuller picture than does Mulvagh of recent Lygon history, in particular of the banishment of William, the seventh Earl Beauchamp. William was born to intensely religious Tractarian parents. At the age of 26, already a controversial figure in Liberal Party politics, he was “sent out to govern New South Wales” (in the words of Belloc’s satirical poem about him), the last Governor of the colony before federation. He and his sister Mary affected a vice-regal display that brought ridicule from the Bulletin until their policy of inviting all classes to Government House won respect. They also became patrons of artists, most famously of Henry Lawson (the full story of the Governor’s private gifts can be read in Colin Roderick’s Life of Lawson). On returning to England, William married a fervent Anglo-Catholic, the wealthy sister of the Duke of Westminster, who paid for the famous Arts and Crafts chapel in Madresfield, while William’s imagination and energy brought it to completion. The couple had seven outstanding children. While the mother was strangely detached, William was devoted, and the children loved him dearly. During and beyond the First War, though anti-war in tendency and a defender of persecuted conscientious objectors, William held important Cabinet posts. But he was bi-sexual and became progressively less cautious about concealing his then illegal homosexual affairs, with “footmen” in particular. Eventually his ill-natured and jealous brother-in-law, the Duke of Westminster, apparently in collaboration with King , collected evidence of homosexual encounters and presented it to the Countess. She sued for divorce and left Madresfield. Byrne, in a major coup, has uncovered the previously restricted divorce documents and quotes the apparently damning evidence. William was given a choice: face prosecution, or go overseas and stay away. He chose exile over exposure. (This, Ms Byrne, is the opposite of “outing”!) In 1931 Waugh became friends with three Lygon girls, Mary (Maimie), Dorothy (Coote) and Sibell, and with two of the brothers, Hugh, and Elmley, all of whom lived at Madresfield. Pace Mulvagh, Waugh also spent a holiday in with William. Without either parent in the house, the young Lygons entertained constantly and, while addicted to hunting, also moved in fast Metroland circles. Lettice (the eldest daughter, already married at the time of the catastrophe) and Sibell were one night locked out of their London house in the wee hours and sought refuge with the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, a family friend. In Vile Bodies, Agatha Runcible and other Bright Young Things hold a wild late-night party in 10 Downing Street, Waugh’s fantastication of this escapade. Waugh remained a loyal and very generous friend to Maimie and Coote, long after they had become poor. Parallels between the Lygons of Madresfield and the Flytes of Brideshead Castle abound--father in exile; one daughter, Maimie, beautiful but wayward (like Julia); one daughter, Coote, plain but good (like Cordelia). Sibell had an on-off affair with Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian (like Rex Mottram) newspaper-tycoon, and then bigamously wed a man who, on holiday, had impetuously married and walked away from his wife—adventures reflected in the predicaments dogging Julia’s wedding to Rex. One son, Hugh, beautiful and lovable and doomed to alcoholism, was very like (and one of the models for) Sebastian; the other brother, Elmley, a ponderous cigarette-card collector who married a widow older than himself, became the unmistakable model for Bridey. But while parallels abound, so do differences. No Lady Marchmain ruled the Madresfield establishment, although the religiosity of the absent mother, Lettice, like Lady Marchmain’s, was alienating rather than persuasive. And the Lygon family religion was High Anglican, not Catholic. Despite the overweening claims made by Mulvagh and , who wrote the foreword to her book—“The house upon which Evelyn Waugh based Brideshead was Madresfield Court in Worcestershire”—Brideshead Castle is not a fictionalized Madresfield. In A Handful of Dust, Hetton Abbey, rebuilt in the Neo-Gothic style in the 1860s, with its central clock tower and moat and bedrooms named from Malory, is undisguisedly Madresfield. But the only common feature of Madresfield and Brideshead Castle is the Arts and Crafts (not “art file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

deco” as Byrne calls it) chapel, which Waugh transferred in faithful detail. Nor is Brideshead Castle a “composite” of Madresfield and Castle Howard, as Byrne suggests. Leaving aside the question of whether Waugh knew Castle Howard other than by reputation, what matters is that Brideshead Castle is an artistic composition in which every feature functions, almost programmatically, to support the central theme of the novel. Its foundations are specifically Catholic, not “Anglo-Saxon” as Mulvagh and Byrne describe them, exemplifying Waugh’s often repeated point that England was Catholic for 900 years before it became Protestant, with Catholic origins only lightly buried beneath recent history. The Castle was rebuilt in the eighteenth century by sceptical, humanist Whig oligarchs in the Baroque style. Charles Ryder falls in love with the specifically humanist splendour of the Baroque. The early twentieth-century Arts and Crafts chapel, translated unmodified from Madresfield, is not at all to Charles Ryder’s taste, nor to Waugh’s, a point Byrne badly fudges. Thematically, the chapel in Brideshead Revisited is an unlovely contemporary-Catholic intrusion into the humanly attractive Castle, representing Waugh’s feeling that modern English Catholicism was culturally and socially uninviting. The point of the novel is Charles’s recognition that, however “deplorable in design” the lamp and tabernacle of the chapel may be, they represent an abiding truth that survives the destruction of the worldly glories of the castle and its fountain. Dorothy Lygon was absolutely right to insist that Waugh’s characters—whoever their models might be—are “entirely credible people in plausible situations,” creatures of Waugh’s “imagination … and powers of invention.” And Byrne is equally correct to argue that the characters are “autobiographical and archetypal.” The parallels between Lygons and Flytes are fascinating, but they do not determine the meaning of the novel. Bridey collects match boxes while Elmley collected cigarette cards—why did Elmley not sue?—but Bridey is interesting because he reflects Charles Ryder’s outside-observer view of a certain type of educated, faithful Catholic who, however repellent to the modern secular mind, nevertheless compels grudging respect: a metaphor for the Roman in Waugh’s day. Neither of these books is without flaws. Informed critics have pointed out errors of detail in Mulvagh’s history. No doubt they are right, but I profited from the book and enjoyed it enormously. Byrne, on the other hand, peppers her book with obtrusive errors, often in the detail she so exuberantly supplies. New Zealanders will be amazed to find Rotorua located “on the Bay of Plenty.” But why did Byrne not simply say that Earl Beauchamp stayed in Rotorua? And if Waugh and Maimie Lygon simultaneously caught “crabs” (not from each other!) and corresponded in a delightfully obscene fashion about the shaving required, why court ridicule by calling “crabs” a “sexual disease”? Surely Waugh did not blandly praise the acerbic innkeeper, John Fothergill, as a “civilizing influence”; he declared him a “civilizing insolence.” “Undergraduettes” were not “kept in purdah with the exception of eight weeks” but with the exception of “Eights Week.” The pages regarding Waugh and Sir Robert Laycock on Crete, based on a scenario constructed by Antony Beevor, are pure bunkum. It would be possible to continue in this vein; but the weight and interest of the book far outweigh the minor blemishes. On a more serious note, some of Byrne’s readings of Brideshead Revisited are really odd. I am sure, for example, that in giving Lord Marchmain and Bridey the same politics as Earl Beauchamp and Elmley (“Lord Marchmain is also a Liberal ”) Byrne reverses Waugh’s meaning. The truth is that when Lord Marchmain says he is “all the Socialists would have me to be and a stumbling block to my own party,” he means that as a rich, idle, absentee he is the epitome of everything the Socialists love to denounce as Tory. His son, Bridey, imbued with Catholic social teachings, refuses to help break the General Strike “because he was not satisfied with the justice of the cause.” In short, Lord Marchmain, a Tory, has a Liberal-tending son, Brideshead; this reverses the case of Earl Beauchamp, a Liberal, who has a Tory son, Elmley. It is impossible to review Byrne’s book without complaining loudly about the fact that it is not documented; although, to be fair, the demand for documentation occurs because Byrne has uncovered so much new and fascinating material. Being familiar with most of what has been written about Waugh, I found it infuriating to keep coming upon new information supplied by Byrne with no clue to its source. file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

I also disagree profoundly with Byrne’s glib assertion that “Evelyn Waugh’s problem after the war was that his life went right, so his fiction went wrong.” In no way did Waugh’s “settling down as a country squire with a happy brood of children” affect his “sense of being an outsider” on which, according to Byrne, his “creativity depended.” After the war Waugh set himself stridently against the Modern World and in consequence lived, as an outsider, under a torrent of abuse. Of course Waugh did not go on churning out versions of Decline and Fall, much as his public would have enjoyed that (only hacks keep repeating past successes). Waugh was an artist, always developing both in technique and “wisdom.” The unique melding of past and present in Helena and the development of a mature prose style are only some of the brilliant technical advances he made in the post-war years; and the broadly humane religious themes of Sword of Honour far transcend the narrow denominational theology of Brideshead Revisited. Admittedly, both Byrne and Mulvagh claim too much in the subtitles of their books: the Secrets of Brideshead and the Real Brideshead. As “hidden keys to Waugh’s great novel,” the books unlock few really important “secrets”; although I for one did not realize how extensive the parallels between the Lygon and the Flyte families were, and was delighted to be told. Both writers are infectiously enthusiastic, and they pack their books with new information about the people among whom Waugh lived. In doing so they present Waugh through the eyes of people who knew him really well, and who loved him, and who saw through both his own self- caricature and the popular vilification. I heartily recommend both books.

Editor's Note: This review originally appeared in Quadrant for 2010.

Driven by his Thesis Catholic Modernists, English Nationalists, by Timothy J. Sutton. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2010. 237 pp. $56.00. Reviewed by Robert Murray Davis, University of Oklahoma.

Like many books grown out of dissertations that seek to discover and then impose what Lyotard calls a meta-narrative or, in less ambitious form, a petit récit, readers will usually find the introductory discussion most convincing. To formulate and illustrate his thesis, Timothy J. Sutton chooses the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene to discover “the extent to which conversion to Catholicism provided literary modernists in England an answer to their desire for a return to Western hegemony, authority, and security under a justifying transcendental myth” and the ways in which all that affects their works. Perhaps most interesting to those who have read Ian Ker’s The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961 and Joseph Pearce’s Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief is Sutton’s contention that his group was inspired far less by Newman than by English recusants whose Catholicism tended to be “nationalistic, reserved, aesthetically simple, and independent”—and to ignore as far as possible the practice of the rapidly increasing number of Irish immigrants. This may not be entirely true, but there is a good deal to be said for it, especially in the religious attitudes of Hopkins and Waugh and in the social views of Ford and Waugh. After that, the chapters about individual writers tend to be unexceptional or (sometimes and) annoying, depending on how much the reader happens to know about a particular body of work and on how satisfying he or she finds an approach that deals far more with theme than with aesthetic achievement. I began by acquiescing in the comments on Hopkins (though I had not been aware that he held imperialist views—expressed in prose and in some of his least interesting poems) and Ford (though Sutton seems to have no sense of the complex layering of ironies in The Good Soldier). The Eliot chapter, in attempting to reinstate the interpretation of The Waste Land and to an

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extent Four Quartets as narrative structures, is familiar enough to be consoling. In these readings, Eliot comes off as dated and irrelevant. Sutton does better in telling us what these authors do than in showing us why we should care. However, I wonder if people who know a great deal about these three authors would be as annoyed as I was by the chapters on Waugh and Greene. I think that Sutton is right about Tony Last’s limitations and have often pointed them out. But he thinks that Tony loses Hetton in the divorce, which does not happen; that Cardinal Bourne wrote the Tablet attack on Black Mischief; that Lord Marchmain’s mistress is an American; that Mme. Kanyi (Sutton omits the “y”) is Catholic; that the Hypocrites club was “politically based”; that Waugh became infatuated with Olivia Plunket Greene and Baby Jungman at Oxford, that Nanny Hawkins is the housekeeper at Brideshead; and that Basil Seal, characterized as a dandy, goes to Africa “to escape the confines of modernity” instead of leaving a place that was too hot for him. Perhaps more serious and less corrigible are the passages that occasion marginalia like “too simple,” “not exactly,” “more complicated than that,” “tin ear,” and “well….” Driven by his thesis, Sutton complains, of Vile Bodies, that “Adam does not have the moral integrity to turn toward Catholicism or reform his life.” This ignores entirely the weltanschauung of the novel, in which neither Catholicism nor indeed any meta-narrative has a part. And to maintain that “Sebastian’s descent into alcoholism stems from his inability to follow his vocation as a contemplative” is to distort in a way very different from that of the deplorable 2008 film version of Brideshead. Sutton accepts the general view of Waugh as an incompetent officer more in danger from his own men than from the enemy, a sign that Donat Gallagher’s many carefully researched articles to the contrary have once more been ignored. Sutton is wrong about the link between the Brideshead chapel and the English Catholic past, as Waugh is careful to point out, and about Crouchback abandoning his post in what Sutton thinks is British Intelligence to care for Virginia. And so on. While I don’t know Greene’s work as well as I do Waugh’s, I know enough to spot Sutton’s ignorance of Greene’s suppressed novels The Name of Action and Rumour at Nightfall, his promotion or demotion of Alden Pyle to sergeant in the Army or Marines, and the citation of Vincent Sherry’s biography (later he gets it right). He thinks that Pinkie commits suicide “in part because he does not believe he can be forgiven for fornication,” wrong on too many to bother correcting. Perhaps more excusable is his confusion of Greene’s views with those of Bendrix in The End of the Affair, less so his contention that mixing the meta-narratives of Communism and Catholicism in Monsignor Quixote “produces more comedy than results.” On the other hand, Sutton has done a good deal of useful research and has presented it clearly and economically. If he can learn from his mistakes, limit his focus to manageable topics, and learn to pay closer attention to reading fewer works more carefully, he could produce work that is more than sometimes interesting and valuable.

Brideshead Resold Nabokov’s Butterfly & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books, by Rick Gekoski. New York: Carroll & , 2004. 240 pp. $14.95 paperback. Published in the UK as Tolkien’s Gown & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books. London: Constable, 2004. 240 pp. £12.99 hardcover, £7.99 paperback. Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Manley.

Rick Gekoski is an expatriate American living in the UK who did a post-graduate degree in English Literature at Oxford. After a few years of teaching at Warwick, he decided to pursue his real interest and became a book dealer specializing in twentieth-century rare and first editions, especially those with inscriptions by the author. This book began in 1996 as a series of BBC Radio 4 broadcasts entitled Rare Books, Rare People. In each essay he tells the story of the first edition of a twentieth-century literary classic, how it came to be written and published, how he came to know it and sometimes its author, and how he or some other dealer came to

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acquire it and (usually) sell it. The title story of the US edition relates to Gekoski's sale of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita in several versions. Gekoski listed in a 1988 catalogue a first UK edition with an inscription at £3250, which led to an offer from one of his customers, Graham Greene, to sell an earlier Paris edition with an inscription to him. In both cases, below Nabokov’s signature was a drawing of a small butterfly. Gekoski paid Greene £4000 for his “almost perfect copy” (though Greene offered to take less in view of its “imperfections”), sold it for £9000 and immediately regretted it.[1] Gekoski bought it back a few years later for £13,000 and sold it to a New York collector for an undisclosed amount. In 2002, the same copy sold at an auction for $264,000. In the title story of the UK edition, Gekoski tells of his acquisition of an academic gown left behind by J. R. R. Tolkien when he moved out of his rooms in Merton College.[2] As a post- graduate student, Gekoski befriended a scout in the college, and the scout offered him Tolkien’s leavings. The gown appeared in his second catalogue at £550 and sold immediately to an American academic. The writer Julian Barnes called and queried what he might charge for other writers’ garments, such as James Joyce’s smoking jacket, D. H. Lawrence’s underpants or Gertrude Stein’s bra, trying to establish where Gekoski might draw the line in these dealings. Barnes wrote an article in the TLS in the same vein, and Gekoski never again dealt in authorial vestments (though he does confess to having sold a lock of Sylvia Plath’s hair). In 1990, Gekoski again had a query from Graham Greene about selling a book. This was one of the fifty austere blue-grey stiff-paperbound copies of Brideshead Revisited which Waugh had printed and distributed to his friends for Christmas 1944, prior to publication. Some of these books bore a tipped-in message apologizing for the lack of an inscription due to Waugh’s war duties, but the one possessed by Greene, as well as most others that Gekoski encountered, bore inscriptions, in this case “For Graham Greene, this antiquated work, from Evelyn Waugh.” Although Gekoski does not explain this apparent anomaly, it suggests that Waugh later inscribed the books when requested to do so by friends. Book dealers are not of one mind as to whether these fifty copies were pre-publication advance copies or proof copies of what was published with revisions six months later in the first trade edition. The publisher pasted a request on the front cover: prior to publication, copies should not be resold, lent or discussed outside of the elect circle to whom they were given. Gekoski deems it “quite simply, the first edition of Brideshead Revisited and, as you can imagine, quite scarce.”[3] Gekoski paid Greene £6000, thinking he could resell it for £10,000. When he saw the actual copy, he began revising upwards and ultimately sold it quickly to a book dealer for £16,000, immediately thinking he had underpriced it. He felt guilty at having underpaid Greene and called to offer him an adjustment. “‘Not at all,’ [Greene] said. ‘When we agree a price, that means I am happy with what I am getting. If you do well out of it, then good for you.’” Gekoski learned that Greene had another copy of BR in the first trade edition with a similar inscription. He tried to prise that away from Greene but was refused: Greene said it was one of his favorite books and he intended to reread it. Gekoski recounts Waugh’s writing of BR, which is familiar to Wavians from various biographies. He also reports discussions with Greene about the contents: they focused on the weakness of Charles Ryder’s love-making scenes with Julia, which had given Waugh great difficulty. Greene agreed that those passages were “hapless,” and Waugh substantially rewrote them in the 1960 edition, as Gekoski notes. Gekoski also dealt in Waugh’s earlier books, which he describes as bearing far more “brightly coloured dust wrappers, with amusing, cartoon-like illustrations on their covers—witty, gay, childlike, insouciant.” He finds that these convey something about the books’ contents and about Waugh himself, since he designed them. The covers of his later books fail to convey the “gaiety of spirit” on these earlier covers or even the austerity of the blue-grey BR limited edition. Gekoski thinks that the financial success Waugh reaped from BR didn’t entirely suit him, since he “missed the anxiety of having to write for money, which honed his mind, and sharpened his appetite.” Perhaps, but one cannot help thinking that Waugh would have enjoyed seeing the money reaped in the book trade as his volumes turned over, gossiping about these file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

absurdly high prices with friends (especially those whose books commanded lesser sums), and even grousing about not being entitled to a cut of the earnings. On the other hand, he might not have been pleased to see Graham Greene, whom he considered a friend, flogging his inscribed copies in the commercial market.[4] The US version of Gekoski’s book contains a total of twenty essays on books and their authors. Aside from those already mentioned, the most likely to be of interest to readers of EWNS relate to Graham Greene’s miniscule editions of poems written for his mistress Catherine Walston (After Two Years), Gekoski’s career as bibliographer of William Golding, and his dispute with Harold Pinter over the sale of an unpublished Philip Larkin poem in manuscript (“High Windows”). More recently, Gekoski has published an autobiography (called a “bibliomemoir”) also keyed to books and authors, but those he has enjoyed reading rather than those he bought and sold. The contents pages and reviews do not mention any of Waugh’s books. The title, Outside of a Dog, is, however, worth noting and aptly chosen by an author in the book trade. It is taken from Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

Notes [1] The imperfections arose from the inscription being dated later than publication and the book’s not being a first issue. In this case the uniqueness of the inscription from one noted author to another rather than the rarity of the book drove up the price. [2] Both title essays appear in both US and UK editions. The essays appear in different order, however, and the one about William Golding seems to be missing from the UK edition (as determined from the internet listing). [3] The definitive bibliography of Waugh agrees with Gekoski on this point. See Robert Murray Davis, et al., A Bibliography of Evelyn Waugh (Troy, NY: Whitston, 1986), 13, item XIX. Besides routine corrections, the only revision between proofs and limited edition is said to be the change of Mr. Samgrass’s occupation. In response to my e-mail query, Professor Davis explained that the proof copy read, "Apparently he's lately been roped in among some thousand others to write 'The Londoner's Diary' in the Evening Standard." After a discussion between the publisher and Waugh’s agent, A. D. Peters, relating to possible libel, an editor’s note on the proof copy substituted "the gossip page" for "the Londoner's Diary" and "Evening Bulletin" for “Evening Standard.” [4] See Letters, 594-95, where Waugh criticized Randolph Churchill for speculating in the book market with Waugh’s inscribed copies. Randolph was lower in Waugh’s esteem than Graham Greene was, and Randolph overreached by sending books for inscription and requesting both first and limited editions when he possessed only one or the other.

Aloysius Sums It Up by James Morris

In the movie version (perversion) The supposed Sebastian, Has difficulty sitting Aloysius upright.

In the end he succeeds, But rather petulantly.

Contrast this with the television series, Where he’s carried about nonchalantly, With ease.

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Evelyn Waugh Undergraduate Essay Contest Entries in the Sixth Annual Evelyn Waugh Essay Contest should be submitted to Dr. John H. Wilson, Department of English, Lock Haven University, Lock Haven PA 17745, USA, or [email protected], by 31 December 2010.

Evelyn Waugh Society The Evelyn Waugh Society has 94 members. To join, please visit the web site: http://www.evelynwaughsociety.org/. The Evelyn Waugh Discussion List has 73 members. To join, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Evelyn_Waugh.

Waugh's Review of Chesterton Evelyn Waugh's review of Chesterton: Man and Mask, by Garry Wills, has been posted online by the National Review. The piece was published in 1961.

Mad World Paula Byrne, author of Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, appeared with D. J. Taylor to discuss Waugh and at the Oxford Literary Festival on 27 March 2010. Mad World was published in the USA on 30 March 2010, and an excerpt, "Waugh and Brideshead," appeared in the April 2010 issue of Vanity Fair. 's review of the book is available at The Daily Beast.

Decline and Mail Richard Oram posted "A Small Gem of Negativity: The Decline Postcard," on Cultural Compass, the blog of the Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin, on 13 April 2010. The article includes one paragraph on Evelyn Waugh's contribution to the genre.

Midnight Orgies? The April 2010 issue of Vanity Fair also includes "Cameron Obscura," an article on , Conservative leader and prospective prime minister. Cameron's membership in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford leads to a reference to Brideshead Revisited. Perhaps we can look forward to the "the sound of the English county families baying for broken glass" (Decline and Fall) or "Midnight Orgies at No. 10" (Vile Bodies).

Tour of Tatton Park Alan Oakes is the guide for a Brideshead Revisited tour of Tatton Park (Cheshire, UK) on 5 June 2010. The 1981 Brideshead television series included forty-four scenes (over seventy minutes) file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD

filmed at Tatton, including the adjacent rooms of Charles and Sebastian, most scenes in Marchmain House, most scenes in the Bayswater house of Charles's father, and scenes in the orangery, fernery and Italian garden. Tatton was occasionally "rearranged" to suit various scenes. Wilcox climbs stairs to get to the music room, which is actually on the ground floor. The crew sometimes made Tatton seem smaller to suit the Bayswater house. ITV have permitted still images to be used for the tour, to present fiction and reality side by side. Evelyn Waugh broke his leg at Tatton, where over 20,000 parachute troops trained between 1940 and 1945. Alan welcomes questions or comments at [email protected]. Places on the tour can be booked by calling 01625 374428 in the UK or 0044 1625 374428 from overseas.

Four More Lists Brideshead Revisited made 's list of the ten best visits to Venice. See John Mullan's column in the issue for 23 January 2010. Brideshead placed 90th out of 100 on Newsweek's "meta-list" of the top 100 books. This list was derived from other lists. It appeared on 29 June 2009. Brideshead Revisited placed second on the Guardian's list of the top fifty television dramas, behind The Sopranos. The column appeared in the issue for 12 January 2010. Scoop came eighth in the Guardian's list of the top ten talkative novels. See Frederic Raphael's column in the issue for 10 March 2010.

Caricatures of Waugh David Levine, caricaturist for several decades for the New York Review of Books, passed away in 2009. An online gallery of his work includes four caricatures that can be found by searching for "Evelyn Waugh."

End of Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1 Previous Issue Home Page and Back Issues

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