Product Description

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 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, the Marchmains, in "Brideshead Revisited". William Lygon, Earl Beauchamp, was a warm-hearted, generous and unconventional father whose seven children adored him. When he was forced to flee the country by his scheming brother-in-law, his traumatised children stood firmly by him, defying not only the mores of the day, but also their deeply religious mother. In this engrossing biography, bestselling author Paula Byrne takes an innovative approach to her subject, setting out to capture Waugh through the friendships and loves that mattered most to him. She uncovers a man who, far from the snobbish misanthropist of popular caricature, was as loving and complex as the family that inspired him. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3021 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

About the Author
Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, "Jane Austen and the Theatre", was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. Her second book, "Perdita", was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, she lives in Warwickshire with her three young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.

Customer Reviews

Mad World and Brideshead
A biography needs to be framed by a Point of View. Usually it is its subject and should be so if he is unlikely to be portrayed more than once. Evelyn Waugh is not such a case. The interest in him is sufficiently wide to accommodate different Points of View. Mad World is written from the Point of View of the Lygon family, with whom Waugh was friendly and whose members are in part associated with individual characters in Brideshead Revisited.
Paula Byrne has done her subject proud and, if one puts a price on the pleasure something provides, it is hopelessly under-priced. Mad World reveals much of what I did not know of Evelyn Waugh, even though I have read about him to a considerable degree. It reveals much more about the Lygon family members. How interesting it is that seemingly insignificant events in Brideshead Revisited happened to one degree or another to people mentioned in this biography. Two villains make their appearance. The first is the second Duke of Westminster, a character as malignant to the seventh Earl Beauchamp as the appalling Marquess of Queensbury was to Oscar Wilde. The second villain is King George V. He abandoned his loyal servant Beauchamp to the Duke of Westminster's knavery in a manner only less reprehensible to the way he abandoned Tsar Nicholas II.
After Brideshead, life did not proceed smoothly for any of the people in this book. I remind myself of the conversation between Cordelia and Charles in Brideshead:
` ... such an engaging child, grown up a plain and pious spinster, full of good works.' Did you think "thwarted"?'
It was no time for prevarication. `Yes,' I said, `I did; I don't now so much.'
`It's funny,' she said, `that's exactly the word I thought for you and Julia when we were up in the nursery with nanny. "Thwarted passion," I thought...'
Thwarted. That's what happened to them all.
Paula Byrne's style is free of journalistic puffery, therefore this biography is authoritative. I find very few vague points. I will not mention them because I try to ration myself to just one personal point, which I have just mentioned. Such can be understood if the reader, like me, lives in a country like Australia where the state is presently governed by press release.

sorry to have finished it....
An excellently informative book. Very interesting to fans of Evelyn Waugh, as it comes from a different direction in terms of both style as well as content. A few unecessary repetitions and a couple of moments lapsing into tabloid style language did not spoil my enjoyment of the story. Paula Byrne seems to have taken real pleasure in researching and writing the book and I must admit that I was very sorry to have come to the final page as I very much enjoyed reading it.

Excellent
A highly entertaining, amusing and interesting read. Highly recommended to those interested in the background to Brideshead Revisited but also a fascinating look at the often bizarre antics of the English upper classes.