New Releases by Evelyn Waugh

"A wickedly witty and iridescent novel" satirizes the generation of "Bright Young Things"—rich young people who dominated London high society in the 1920s ( Time ). Roaring Twenties London was the place to be—at least for the wealthy and well-connected of Great Britain. With the gossip columns recording everything from their parties to their scandals, writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and his glamorous, aristocratic fiancée Nina Blount, along with an assortment of eccentric characters, explore the capricious excesses and forbidden pleasures of a life lived before the public eye—where innocence mixes with sophistication and yields shocking results. From Evelyn Waugh, "one of the most exhilarating stylists" of the twentieth century ( Newsweek), Vile Bodies reveals the darkness and vulnerability beneath the sparkling surface of society. "Vile Bodies may shock you, but it will make you laugh." — The New York Times

Brideshead Revisited harkens back to the perceived ''golden age'' prior to World War II. In these halcyon days, Charles Ryder is infatuated with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.

William Boot, a young man who lives in genteel poverty, far from the iniquities of London, contributes nature notes to Lord Copper’s Daily Beast, a national daily newspaper. He is dragooned into becoming a foreign correspondent, when the editors mistake him for John Courtney Boot, a fashionable novelist and a remote cousin. He is sent to Ishmaelia, a fictional state in East Africa, to report on the crisis there. Lord Copper believes it “a very promising little war” and proposes “to give it fullest publicity”. Despite his total ineptitude, Boot accidentally gets the journalistic “scoop” of the title. When he returns, the credit goes to the other Boot and William is left to return to his bucolic pursuits, much to his relief.

Fueled by idealism and eagerness to contribute to the war effort, Guy Crouchback becomes attached to a commando unit undergoing training on the Hebridean isle of Mugg, where the whisky flows freely and respect must be paid to the laird. But the comedy of Mugg is soon followed by the bitterness of Crete, where chaos reigns and a difficult evacuation must be accomplished.—Goodreads.com.

Black Mischief was Evelyn Waugh’s third novel, published in 1932. The novel chronicles the efforts of the English-educated Emperor Seth, assisted by a fellow Oxford graduate, Basil Seal, to modernize his Empire, the fictional African island of Azania, located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. Hilarity ensues from the issuance of homemade currency, the staging of a “Birth Control Gala,” the rightful ruler’s demise at his own rather long and tiring coronation ceremonies, and a good deal more mischief.

Waugh brings some of his best characters back for another romp. Against the backdrop of the Phoney War, Alistair Trumpington wants only the chance to fight for a worthy cause, but instead he finds himself stuck in a never-ending series of military maneuvers, getting him nowhere closer to any front.Meanwhile, the scoundrel Basil Seal sees the burgeoning war as an opportunity to help only himself.

Evelyn Waugh''s personal favorite of his novels and "a superlatively well done book" set in the age of Emperor Constantine ( Chicago Tribune). Helena is the intelligent, horse-mad daughter of a British chieftain who is thrown into marriage with the man who will one day become the Roman emperor Constantius. Leaving home for lands unknown, she spends her adulthood seeking truth in the religions, mythologies, and philosophies of the declining ancient world, and becomes initiated into Christianity just as it is recognized as the religion of the Roman Empire. Helena—a novel that Evelyn Waugh considered to be his favorite, and most ambitious, work—deftly traverses the forces of corruption, treachery, enlightenment, and political intrigue of Imperial Rome as it brings to life an inspiring heroine. "In Helena, the play of words and the fireworks, the exquisite descriptions of landscapes, and even the finished portraits of the heroine, her husband, and her son, are always subordinate to the author''s broad vision of the mixed anguish and hope with which the world of Constantine''s time was filled." — New York Herald Tribune

Evelyn Waugh''s satiric World War II trilogy comprises the acclaimed novels Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and Unconditional Surrender. This narrative spanning the war, based in part on Evelyn Waugh''s own experiences as an army officer, is the author''s surpassing achievement as a novelist. Its central character is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war overwhelming. Though often somber, Sword of Honor is also a brilliant comedy, peopled by the fantastic figures so familiar from Waugh''s early satires. The deepest pleasures these novels afford come from observing a great satirist employ his gifts with extraordinary subtlety, delicacy, and human feeling, for purposes that are ultimately anything but humorous.

"In John Carmel Cardinal Heenan, Waugh found a sympathetic pastor and somewhat of a kindred spirit. This volume brings together the personal correspondence between Waugh and Heenan during the 1960s." - publishers description.

In four short key works, an African state goes into a political tailspin, journalism comes under scrutiny, the California mortuary business is shown in a comic light, and a man goes mad on board an ocean liner.

One of Evelyn Waugh''s most exuberant comedies, Scoop is a brilliantly irreverent satire of Fleet Street and its hectic pursuit of hot news. Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of The Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs Algernon Stitch, he feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising little war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. But for, pale, ineffectual William Boot, editor of the Daily Beast''s ''nature notes'' column, being mistaken for a competent journalist may prove to be a fatal error... If you enjoyed Scoop, you might like Waugh''s Decline and Fall, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. ''Waugh at the mid-season point of his perfect pitch'' Christopher Hitchens

Collected for the first time in a single volume: all of the short fiction by one of the 20th century''s wittiest and most trenchant observers of the human comedy.

Evelyn Waugh was a loving Husband, a wise and affectionate father and the funniest English novelist of the century. This selection of letters does full justice to these splendid attribute''s " Phillip Toynbee.

Indtryk fra forfatterens rejse gennem Kenya, Tanganyika og Rhodesia i 1959.

Ce retour au pays natal de Charles Ryder auquel l''auteur du fameux Cher Disparu nous convie, c''est un voyage au cœur d''un monde en voie de disparition que l''auteur pleure et nous invite à regretter avec lui. Passéisme peut-être, mais sans mélancolie. On retrouve ici comme dans toutes les autres œuvres d''Evelyn Waugh l''univers excentrique malicieux et enjoué qui a fait de cet auteur l''un des précurseurs des " jeunes gens en colère " qui ont révolutionné après guerre le monde des lettres anglaises. Raillerie et défense d''un ordre suranné.

"Evelyn Waugh kept a diary almost continuously from the age of seven until a year before his death in 1966. Extracts from the diaries caused sensation when they were published by the ''Observer''. They are a unique literary document of 300,000 words which provide the background to the novels which made Waugh famous, and gives a continuously sharp and baleful view of the social history of our times. The Diaries throw new light not only on Waugh''s work, but on the character of a puzzling, cantankerous and formidable man." --Publisher description.

The account of a tropical journey through British Guiana and part of Brazil.