The Life of Evelyn Waugh

Chronology of Waugh s Works.
List of Illustrations.List of Abbreviations.Preface.1. Becoming Modern (1903-1930).2. The Doom of Youth: Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies.3. Political Decade - I (1930-1935).4. Political Decade - II (1935-1939).5. A Peoples War (1939-1945).6. Brideshead Revisited.7. A Peoples Peace (1945-50).8. The Post of Honour is a Private Station (1948-1953).9. Retrospective: Shaping a Life (1953-66).Notes.Bibliography.Index.

Douglas Lane Patey is Professor of English at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. His previous books include Probability and Literary Form: Philosophic Theory and Literary Practice in the Augustan Age (1984). He is the author of numerous essays on eighteenth-century and philosophical subjects.

"Patey mounts a spirited defence of Waugh, dismissing with some authority many of the familiar items on the charge-sheet. Patey seems to have read not only everything his subject wrote, but a great deal of background material. Such thoroughness, and an alertness to what may be going on in Waugh's apparently limpid prose makes it a valuable addition to a growing body of critical work on this twentieth-century master." Times Literary Supplement "This calm, deliberate biography- which measures Waugh's life in the context of his work, rather than making the work serve as an excuse for discussing the life - should be included in every academic collection for use of undergraduates through faculty" Choice "Patey's sympathetic and acute portrait of Waugh narrates Waugh's narration of his own life, combining thorough research with an exhaustive knowledge of Waugh's fiction and nonfiction and the insight of a highly skilled literary critic. The result is the finest biography by far of Evelyn Waugh to date, and a welcome corrective of the regnant record. It is impossible to pay sufficient tribute to the chapter Patey devotes to Brideshead Revisited. It is, simply, the very best interpretation of the novel of which I am aware." First Things The Life of Evelyn Waugh is a biography with a difference. In addition to being the life story of the English writer who was so active from the late 1920s until his relatively early death in April 1966 at age 62, it is also a critical assessment of his novels and other literary works. Readers will be well repaid for their perseverance." Languages and Literature "It is a tribute to the thoroughness of Patey's research and his ready invocation of so many perspectives that the subject of his biography should emerge as an even more fascinating and complex figure than one had imagined. It is Waugh the writer, though, who must remain of prime interest. In this regard, Patey is the perfect critical guide." The Month "Patey is a crisp and