Stannard - Evelyn Waugh

General Editor: B.C.Southam

The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writers work and its place within a literary tradition.

The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such as letters and diaries.

Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writers death.

First published in 1984

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Compilation, introduction, notes and index 1984 Martin Stannard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0-415-15924-5 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-19615-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-19618-X (Glassbook Format)

The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near contemporaries is evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writers historical situation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures.

The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth- and twentieth century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative quality perhaps even registering incomprehension!

For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writers lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow to appear.

In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of the authors reception to what we have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged.

B.C.S.

First edition

US edition

Mr Lovedays Little Outing and
Other Sad Stories (1936)

Revised edition

A Little Order (Waughs journalism),
ed. Donat Gallagher (1978)

The reviews are generally ordered chronologically in each section. Where several items appeared on the same day these are in alphabetical order of the authors surname, unsigned notices following these. Notices dated only by the month come last of all, again wherever possible in alphabetical order of the authors surname.

In trying to maintain chronology I have found it necessary to split two long essays which offered a bookbybook account between the various sections. Nigel Denniss Evelyn Waugh: The Pillar of Anchorage House, Partisan Review, 28 July 1943, 35061, and Rose Macaulays The Best and the Worst II. Evelyn Waugh, Horizon, December 1946, 36076 appear as Nos 84, 89, 92 and Nos 20, 30, 56, 63, 71, 79, 93, 101 respectively.

In the Introduction, reviews quoted but not included in the book are indicated by full references in parentheses. For the ease of the British reader at least, I have cited quotations from the Penguin editions of the novels rather than the expensive Uniform Edition. For the travel books and biographies, page references are to the first edition. Place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated.

I should like to thank the following: Mr Mark Amory, Dr Robin Biswas, Professor Philip Collins, Mr Philip Dodd, Dr Helen Evans, Mr Roger Fallon (for compiling the index), the Leverhulme Trust (for my three years as Leverhulme Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh) and Ms Moragh Reid. I should also like to thank the office staff of the Department of English, University of Leicester, and the staffs of the following libraries for their patient assistance: the Bodleian, the British Library, Edinburgh University Library, Leicester University Library, and the National Library of Scotland.

It has not always proved possible to locate the owners of copyright material. However, all possible care has been taken to trace ownership of the selections printed and to make full acknowledgment for their use. For permission to reprint, and for answering queries, thanks are due to the following: Sir Harold Acton for No. 5; Kingsley Amis for Nos 149 and 171; Associated Newspapers Group Ltd for No. 15, from the Evening News; John Bayley and John Grigg for No. 123; The Bell for Nos 102, 103, 104 and 105; Bernard Bergonzi for Nos 57 and 172; Malcolm Bradbury for No. 184; Brigid Brophy for Nos 58 and 75; Anthony Burgess for No. 188; Jonathan Cape Ltd for No. 58, from Don't Never Forget by Brigid Brophy; the Catholic Herald for No. 68; Cherwell for Nos 2, 14 and 35; The Christian Science Publishing Society for No. 49, from the Christian Science Monitor; Rosica Colin Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Richard Aldington for No. 27 ( Madame Catharine Guillaume); Collins Publishers for No. 143, from Evelyn Waugh. A Biography by Christopher Sykes; Cosmopolitan for No. 187; the Daily Express for Nos 34, 41 and 90; the Daily Telegraph for Nos 40, 78, 118, 125, 197 and 198; George Dangerfield for No. 88; Encounter for Nos 109, 165 and 188; the Evening Standard for Nos 13 and 25; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., for Nos 65 and 99, first published in the New Yorker, reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., from Splendors and Miseries of Evelyn Waugh, from Classics and Commercials by Edmund Wilson (Copyright 1950 by Edmund Wilson. Copyright reviewed 1978 by Elena Wilson); Graham Greene for Nos 60 and 162; the Guardian for Nos 1, 81, 94 and 146 from the Manchester Guardian and Nos 172 and 194 from the Guardian; Sir Rupert Hart-Davis as literary executor of William Plomer for Nos 53 and 183; the Estate of L.P.Hartley for No. 24; A.M.Heath & Company Ltd on behalf of the Estate of the late Jocelyn Brooke for No. 181, and on behalf of the Estate of George Orwell for No. 114; Hodder & Stoughton for No. 43, from The Bookman; I.H.T. Corporation for No. 10, Thomas Craven's review of Rossetti, New York Herald Tribune, 2 September 1928 ( I.H.T. Corporation), for No. 110, Thomas Sugrue's review of When the Going was Good, New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, 5 January 1947 ( I.H.T. Corporation), for No. 128, Gouverneur Paulding's review of Helena, New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, 22 October 1950 ( I.H.T. Corporation), and for No. 144, Frank O'Connor's review of Tactical Exercise, New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, 7 November 1954 ( I.H.T. Corporation), all used by permission; Stanley Kauffmann for No. 186 (Copyright 1964 Harrison-Blaine Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author); Frank Kermode for No. 109; Philip Larkin for No. 194; the Editor of the Leicestershire Tatler for No. 22, from Bystander; the Estate of Mrs G.A.Wyndham Lewis and the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust for No. 196, from Wyndham Lewis, The Doom of Youth (Copyright 1981 by the Estate of Mrs G.A. Wyndham Lewis by permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust); London Magazine for No. 163; Dr Dermod MacCarthy for Nos 61 and 121; The Month for Nos 130 and 152; The Nation (New York) for No. 178; New Blackfriars for No. 57, from Blackfriars; The New Republic for No. 151 by Curtis Bradford ( 1955, The New Republic. Inc.); the New Statesman for Nos 6 and 8 from the Nation and Athenaeum and Nos 16, 26, 33, 54, 59, 69, 73, 87, 97, 122, 127, 133, 155, 157, 168, 173, 182 and 185 from the New Statesman; The New Yorker for No. 135 (Reprinted by permission; 1952, 1980 The New Yorker Magazine Inc.); The New York Times' for Nos 9, 18, 29, 38, 50, 64, 82, 98, 114, 150, 158, 164 and 177 ( 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1939, 1945, 1946, 1949, 1955, 1958, 1960, 1962 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission); Nigel Nicolson for No. 80; The Observer for Nos 4, 12, 32, 126, 156, 162 and 176; Partisan Review for Nos 84, 89 and 92 ( Partisan Review, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1943, pp. 35061), for No. 136 ( Partisan Review, Vol. 19, No. 6, 1952) and for No. 179 ( Partisan Review, Vol. 29, No. 3, 1962); A.D.Peters & Co. Ltd for published and unpublished material by Evelyn Waugh, for No. 3, from My Brother Evelyn by Alec Waugh, for Nos 20, 30, 56, 63, 71, 79, 93 and 101 by Rose Macaulay, from Horizon, December 1946, and for No. 42 by Eric Linklater, all reprinted by permission of A.D.Peters & Co. Ltd; David Pryce Jones for No. 107; Punch for No. 193; Peter Quennell for Nos 6, 7, 54 and 59; Deborah Rogers Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Cyril Connolly for No. 116, reprinted from Horizon, 1948; Alan Sillitoe for No. 170; the Spectator for Nos 23, 39, 48, 53, 67, 76, 86, 96, 108, 111, 149, 153, 166, 171, 180, 184 and 195; Dr E.C.Stopp for No. 130; Christopher Sykes for Nos 143 and 147; the Editor of The Tablet for Nos 44, 45, 52, 72, 139, 142, 161, 167 and 174; Time Magazine Weekly News Magazine for No. 100 from Life and Nos 117, 129, 134 and 159 from Time ( Time Inc.); the Times Literary Supplement for Nos 36, 47, 51, 66, 70, 74, 85, 91, 95, 112, 120, 138, 141, 154, 160, 189, 190 and 191; Times Newspapers Ltd for Nos 21 and 131 from The Times' and Nos 113, 121, 132, 140, 148, 169 and 175 from the Sunday Times'; the late Alec Waugh for No. 187; Auberon Waugh for published and unpublished material by Evelyn Waugh (reprinted by permission of A.D.Peters & Co. Ltd); the late Dame Rebecca West for Nos 11, 28 and 37; Angus Wilson for Nos 165 and 191.