Evelyn Waugh - Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh

The Complete Works of

EVELYN WAUGH

(19031966)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2019

Version 2

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The Complete Works of

EVELYN WAUGH

By Delphi Classics, 2019

Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh

First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2019.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 996 8

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Explore Interwar literature with Delphi Classics

For the first time in digital publishing history, Delphi Classics is proud to present the complete works of these important authors.

Explore Edwardian era authors

(1952)

(1955)

(1961)

(1965 revised edition of the three novels)

Waugh was born in Hampstead, London in 1903

When Waugh was three, his family moved into Underhill, near Golders Green

Waugh as a young man

Decline and Fall was first published by Chapman and Hall in England in 1928. It was the authors debut novel; he had written an earlier work of fiction in 1924 called The Temple at Thatch , but had burned the manuscript in 1925 after his friend and writer, Harold Acton, had strongly criticised it. Waugh lapsed into a period of deep depression and even determined to end his own life, before having second thoughts about it. In time, he regained his self-confidence and once more started to believe in his abilities as a novelist. The title of the work references Edward Gibbons The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Oswald Spenglers The Decline of the West. The novel was partially inspired by the authors observations while attending the boarding school Lancing College and his later experiences at Oxford University.

Decline and Fall is a satirical novel that mocks university life and the fragmented and morally confused high society of Britain in the 1920s. It centres on Paul Pennyfeather, a theology student at Oxford, who is expelled for participating in drunken debauchery; he loses his inheritance as a result of his behaviour and is compelled to go and teach at a school in Wales. He soon begins a relationship with Margot Beste-Chetwynde, the wealthy mother of one of his pupils. Unfortunately, Beste-Chetwyndes affluence comes from a less than reputable source and Pennyfeather becomes implicated in her illegal endeavours.

The book was illustrated by Waugh himself and it fared well with critics. The Guardian , in 1928, praised it as a great lark; its author has an agreeable sense of comedy and characterisation, and the gift of writing smart and telling conversation, while his drawings are quite in tune with the spirit of the tale. The review also compared the superficial presentation in the novel to that employed by P. G. Wodehouse. Author Arnold Bennett hailed Decline and Fall as an uncompromising and brilliantly malicious satire, while the writer John Mortimer called it Waugh's most perfect novel ... a ruthlessly comic plot.

The novel was adapted for film in 1969 as Decline and Fall....of a Birdwatcher by director John Krish and it starred Robin Phillips and Donald Wolfit. In 2017, there was a three-part BBC television dramatisation of the book starring Jack Whitehall, David Suchet and Eva Longoria.