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A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England's greatest novelists, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, 'Brideshead Revisited'. Evelyn Waugh was already famous when 'Brideshead Revisited' was published in 1945. Written at the height of the war, the novel was, he admitted, of no 'immediate propaganda value'. Instead, it was the story of a household, a family and a journey of religious faith - an elegy, in many ways, for a vanishing world and a testimony to a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier. The Lygons of Madresfield were every bit as glamorous, eccentric and compelling as their counterparts in 'Brideshead Revisited'. In this engrossing biography, Paula Byrne takes an innovative approach to her subject, setting out to capture Waugh through those friendships that mattered most to him. Far from the snobbish misanthropist of popular caricature, she uncovers a man as loving and complex as the family that inspired him - a family deeply traumatised when their father was revealed as a homosexual and forced to flee the country. This brilliantly original biography unlocks for the first time the extent to which Waugh's great novel encoded and transformed his own experiences. In so doing, it illuminates the loves and obsessions that shaped his life, and brings us inevitably to a secret that dared not speak its name.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Madresfield Court (England), Friends and associates, English Novelists, Biography, Friendship, Umkreis, Brideshead revisited (Waugh, Evelyn), Waugh, evelyn, 1903-1966, Authors, biography, Authors, english, Women authors, Women, biography, English AuthorsPeople
Ligon family, Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)Times
20th centuryShowing 5 featured editions. View all 5 editions?
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1
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
2012, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
in English
000745547X 9780007455478
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2
Mad world: Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of Brideshead
2011, HarperPress, Harper Press
in English
0007903715 9780007903719
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3
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
Mar 08, 2011, Harper Perennial
paperback
0060881313 9780060881313
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4
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
May 27, 2010, HarperPress, imusti
paperback
0007243774 9780007243778
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5
Mad world: Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of Brideshead
2009, HarperPress
in English
0007243766 9780007243761
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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