Twenty years (1946-66) of reciprocal, unconditional support between the twin sensibilities and manifestly unlike personalities of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, expressed in a private shorthand of shared history and coined language.
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"But connoisseurs of the graver Waugh styles will find stretches of elegant prose in every decade; and Gallagher's extensive introductory material (plus a ten-page list of the articles not included here) helps to make this a substantial addition to the Waughreference shelf."
More for Waugh scholars than for admirers of his fiction, this massive volume brings together nearly 50 years of book-reviews, newspaper columns, letters-to-the-editor, and essays.
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"Minor Waugh, to be sure (especially the Ryder rediscovery), but with occasional bursts of inspired nastiness and superb prose."
The title piece is the only new material here: a recently discovered fragment from a novel Waugh never finished—about the pre-Oxford life of Charles Ryder of Brideshead Revisited.
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"An indirectly revealing collection, then, with a few intriguing oddities (restrained encouragement for fledgling novelist Alex Comfort) and reference points for the novels (the comic rhythms of the prose here, as well as EW's occasional work-in-progress comments)-but, all in all, another regretfully shallow display from a writer whose best work is anything but."
Apparently bearing in mind the dull, distasteful impression made by Waugh's Diaries (1977), editor Amory's rather defensive introduction stresses that "this version" of Waugh "shows him to his best advantage so far."
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"Whereas the diaries and letters may put off readers, this is more likely to encourage them to explore further."
A small, judicious selection of Waugh's journalistic pieces, 1917-1964—only a pendant to the recently-published diaries and letters, perhaps, but a display of the author's range without his excesses.
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All different kinds of people are going to be disappointed by these heavily heralded diaries—kept by England's most acerbic schoolboy, playboy, traveler, soldier, and novelist.
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"Some critics, Malcolm Muggeridge for instance, considered this ironic, absurd, affecting (and autobiographical) portrait of a middle aged man at war his finest achievement."
Both a "recension" (Waugh before his death excised some of the original material) as well as a one-volume publication of the World War II trilogy— Men at Arms (1952) Officers and Gentleman (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961) which Waugh thought of as "obituary of the Roman Catholic Church in England."
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Presumably the last of the Evelyn Waugh novels dealing with the adventures of Englishman Guy Crouchback immediately prior, during and just after the Second World War, The End Of The Battle gleams with all the old audacity, macabre romanticism and cadaverous jollity which have made Waugh probably the supreme satirist of our day.
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"He does more than record his subject's exterior life; he provides a record of a lost era — which World War I changed forever."
Although this biography was respectfully reviewed when it was first published in England — due, one suspects, as much to its author as to its subject — it was apparent that, for his countrymen, Ronald Knox, the man, remains essentially remote.
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"A rather macabre fancy, curiosity- along with the expected cleverness of phrase- combine to make a small diversion of delusion; it is not, however, Waugh at his strongest-or his best."
The bizarre experiences which overtake and almost overcome Gilbert Pinfold, a successful British novelist of fifty years, form a slight novel- which is also something of a literary vagary for Evelyn Waugh.
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"From the first book which had a glowing press- but a perhaps less impressive response- you can best determine your market here which will be at an intellectual rather than popular level."
The second part of the trilogy which began with Men At Arms (1952) continues the leisurely perspective of World War II, and while the narrative itself is perhaps a fitful one- it is animated not only by the splendid display of its satiric invention- but also by its compassionate concern.
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"An intellectual invention which is not without its spiritual significance, this still does not subdue the occasional bright badinage, the wit which is a worldly one, although it will be the name that will carry this to its audience."
"If, in contrast to The Loved One, the satiric content here is of a more cerebral rather than sensational nature, the Waugh name will carry this to a wider market than he reached earlier in his career."
Returning more nearly to the mood of his earlier works, this short novel, of a traditional English schoolmaster's exposure to the materialism and totalitarianism of a middle-European country, is a skillful satiric exercise and one which- in its intellectual subtlety- is well above The Loved One.
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"Biography in the classical tradition and in the pure prose associated with Waugh, this will have a devotional appeal as well as an intellectual interest, but is not for the wider market of his last."
A biography of Edmund Campion, the gentle scholar- who was forced by the bigotry and persecution of the Elizabethan age into a world of violence, which offers a reverential portrayal, assured scholarship.
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"This edition will make this material available to the larger market opened up by Brideshead Revisited."
This reprints, in one volume, selected, connected passages from four of Waugh's travel books which were published between 1929 and 1935.
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Satire on foreign correspondents in a fantastic tale of one William Boot, accidentally thrust into the limelight as foreign correspondent to cover a reputed war in some imagined African country.
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"It will undoubtedly be overlooked by many Waugh admirers if it is not there, and by Catholic and Protestant alike who enjoy a treat."
The Waughs have a way with them that would intrigue and enchant any modern, but Edmund Campion, Elizabeth's Martyr-Saint would do a proper job even though painted by a brush lacking Waugh's natural flair.
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"The Waugh devotees will be on deck for this but a cooling word in advance will prepare them for the break with what has gone before."
Listed by the publishers as a "serio-comic novel of military life", this turns out to be more "serio" than "comic" and, from an American view, nigh on to dullness.
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