A Handful of Dust

Evelyn Waugh, born on October 28, 1903, in London, was one of the most prominent British writers of the 20th century. Waugh was born into a literary family; his father, Arthur Waugh, was a publisher and literary critic, and his older brother, Alec Waugh, was also a writer. Evelyn grew up in a privileged environment that exposed him to literature and the arts from a young age. He attended Lancing College, a public (known in the US as private) school in West Sussex, where he developed an early interest in writing and a lifelong disdain for the English upper class despite his own privileged background. This disdain is evident in his satire of the gentry in A Handful of Dust.

In 1922, Waugh went on to study history at Hertford College, Oxford. His time at Oxford was marked by his involvement in the hedonistic lifestyle of the “Brideshead generation,” a group of young men who indulged in excessive drinking, extravagant parties, and a general disdain for the conventional values of their parents’ generation. However, Waugh’s academic career was less successful. He left Oxford without a degree in 1924, a failure that reflected his growing disillusionment with academia and the social environment at the university. After leaving Oxford, Waugh briefly worked as a schoolmaster, a period he found miserable and uninspiring. His experiences during this time would later inspire his first novel, Decline and Fall (1928), a satire of the British educational system and the moral decay of society.

Decline and Fall was an immediate success and established Waugh as a leading satirist of his generation. The novel’s absurdist humor, sharp social critique, and satirical portrayal of the British upper class won him critical acclaim and a devoted readership. Waugh’s early works, including Vile Bodies (1930) and A Handful of Dust (1934), continued in this satirical vein, skewering the absurdities and hypocrisies of the British elite and the superficiality of modern society. In 1937, Waugh continued in this vein with the publication of Scoop, a satire on journalism. Despite his success as a satirist, Waugh’s personal life was tumultuous during this period. In 1928, he married Evelyn Gardner, but the marriage quickly fell apart, leading to their separation in 1929. The breakdown of his first marriage had a profound effect on Waugh, leading him to a period of deep introspection and a subsequent conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1930.

The outbreak of World War II had a significant impact on Waugh’s life and career. He served as a war correspondent and later as an officer in the British Army, experiences that would later inspire his war trilogy Sword of Honour (1952-1961). Waugh’s most famous and widely read novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was published shortly after the war. The novel, subtitled “The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder,” explores themes of nostalgia, faith, and the decline of the British aristocracy. Set against the backdrop of a grand English estate, Brideshead Castle, the novel tells the story of Charles Ryder and his complex relationship with the aristocratic Flyte family. Brideshead Revisited is notable for its exploration of Catholicism, particularly the tension between religious faith and secular life, a theme that reflected Waugh’s religious convictions. In 1948, Waugh published The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy, a satire about Hollywood and the film industry that inspired the 1965 film The Lost Ones, starring Robert Morse.