The Evelyn Waugh fanatics

Why the author still has one of the most devoted followings in modern literature

Writer Evelyn Waugh.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ninety years ago the English publisher Duckworth issued a biography of Dante Gabriel Rossetti by an unknown writer. The anonymous reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement heaped scorn on the efforts of "Miss Waugh," whom he seems to have regarded as a kind of sexually frustrated maiden aunt.

This was not the last time that Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh would find himself on the receiving end of critical nastiness. Toward the end of his life he was driven to temporary insanity by the questions of BBC interviewers and the hostility of the tabloid press, an experience recounted with bleak hilarity in The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.