Since Martin Stannard’s definitive enough two-volume work of twenty-five years ago, there have been two further substantial treatments, by Selina Hastings and Douglas Patey. The arrival of a new biography is not likely to make hearts beat faster, since Waugh has been thoroughly and scrupulously biographed. What the old rascal would have made of The Evelyn Waugh Society we shall never know, though his quick and sardonic temper might well have been less than thrilled. Exciting also, she tells us, for the “growing, cohesive community of Waugh students and admirers” at conferences and other celebrations. Exciting, since Waugh’s grandson, Alexander-who has already written a sharply amusing family memoir-is in charge of producing forty-two volumes of Waugh’s complete works, to be published sometime in the (near?) future by Oxford. “It is an exciting time to be working on Waugh,” writes Ann Pasternak Slater at the beginning of her excellent book on the writer.
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