Helena, published in 1950, is a novel about the mother of Constantine the Great, in which Waugh re-created one moment in Christian history to assert a particular theological point. In Brideshead Revisited (1945) he studied the workings of providence and the recovery of faith among the members of a Roman Catholic landed family. A later work in that vein is The Loved One (1948), a satire on the morticians’ industry in California.ĭuring World War II, Waugh’s writing took a more serious and ambitious turn. The most noteworthy are Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934), and Scoop (1938). Waugh’s novels, although their material is nearly always derived from first hand experience, are unusually highly wrought and precisely written. After short periods as an art student and schoolmaster, Waugh devoted himself to solitary observant travel and to the writing of novels, soon earning a wide reputation for sardonic wit and technical brilliance. Evelyn Waugh was an English writer regarded by many as the most brilliant satirical novelist of his day.
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