Ann Pasternak Slater

Everyone knows how funny Evelyn Waugh is. One of his finest comic creations was his own increasingly rebarbative public persona - a self-confessed 'front of pomposity mitigated by indiscretion, that was as hard, bright and antiquated as a cuirass'. No wonder new biographies of Waugh are popular. The life and work cannot be separated. Gathered productively at the writer's desk are the chaotic and often bizarre details of Waugh's own life, what he called the 'adroit jigsaw' of his unobtrusively elegant aesthetic structures, and his moral coherence. This study shows how Waugh transformed his own experiences into painfully comic, brilliantly constructed novels. They are works, in his own words, of 'elegance and variety of contrivance'. Ann Pasternak Slater has written an ingenious and engaging study of the relationship between Waugh's life and work, between his sharp moral vision and Dionysiac comic genius. She focuses on Waugh's entire fictional oeuvre in a book notable for its intelligent sympathy.

The Vivien Eliot Papers is a groundbreaking new biography of Vivien Eliot, comprising two sections: her Life and her Papers. Based on a rich repository of primary evidence, much only recently uncovered, it corrects the accidental inaccuracies and deliberate distortions that have circulated around one of Bloomsbury's most gossiped-about, enigmatic couples, while unveiling fascinating new discoveries that give a more balanced understanding of both partners. For the first time, too, immaculate texts of Vivien's own writing are presented, carefully distinguished from Eliot's input, which demonstrate a fresh and wry talent all of her own.

Everyone knows how funny Evelyn Waugh is. One of his finest comic creations was his own increasingly rebarbative public persona – a self-confessed ‘front of pomposity mitigated by indiscretion, that was as hard, bright and antiquated as a cuirass’. No wonder new biographies of Waugh are popular. The life and work cannot be separated. Gathered productively at the writer’s desk are the chaotic and often bizarre details of Waugh’s own life, what he called the ‘adroit jigsaw’ of his unobtrusively elegant aesthetic structures, and his moral coherence. This study shows how Waugh transformed his own experiences into painfully comic, brilliantly constructed novels. They are works, in his own words, of ‘elegance and variety of contrivance’. Ann Pasternak Slater has written an ingenious and engaging study of the relationship between Waugh’s life and work, between his sharp moral vision and Dionysiac comic genius. She focuses on Waugh’s entire fictional oeuvre in a book notable for its intelligent sympathy.

A Handful of Mischief: New Essays on Evelyn Waugh is a collection of essays based on presentations at the Evelyn Waugh Centenary Conference at Hertford College, Oxford, in 2003. There are twelve different essays by authors from various countries, including Australia, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The essays cover a wide range of material, from Waugh's early novel Black Mischief (1932) to his last travel book, A Tourist in Africa (1960). In addition to essays on well-known novels such as Scoop (1938), Brideshead Revisited (1945), and Helena (1950), the collection includes papers on Waugh's library, his changing conception of Oxford, his writing about religious conversion, and his role in the British evacuation of Crete in 1941. The authors approach Waugh and his work in various ways, and innovative essays explore sovereignty, post-colonialism, and adaptation for radio. Contributors: Baron Alder, Peter G. Christensen, Robert Murray Davis, Marcel DeCoste, Patrick Denman Flanery, Donat Gallagher, Irina Kabanova, Dan S. Kostopulos, Lewis MacLeod, John W. Mahon, Richard W. Oram, Ann Pasternak Slater, John Howard Wilson.