EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER

Volume 2 Number 3 - Winter 1968

A VISIT TO COMBE FLOREY: EVELYN WAUGH'S HOME

Alfred W. Borrello (Mercer County Community College)

On the morning of Wednesday, July 24, 1968, I set out from London to pay a visit to the grave and home of Evelyn Waugh at Combe Florey in Somerset. Accompanying me was Thomas Hurley, a good friend and long an admirer of Waugh's works, to whose retentive memory much of what I write is indebted. The visit had been arranged by Paul Doyle, editor of this Newsletter, through the kindness of Mrs. Waugh who graciously extended a warm invitation.

London was heavily overcast when we left; it was enjoying a brief respite from the wettest summer in its history. We were rather apprehensive about the weather when we boarded the train in Paddington Station for Taunton, nine miles outside of which Waugh's house is located. However, as the train made its way through the crowded suburbs and into the open vistas of the countryside, the sun began to break through the cloud banks to reveal the soft, rolling hills of Somerset, softened still more by the mist which blurred their outlines.

A short ride by taxi took us to the fifteenth century gatehouse which straddles the road and marks the boundary of the Waugh estate. The road turned to the right as we passed under the gate-house, and it wound about the hill on the top of which sits the two storey Carolinian-Georgian house which has been the Waugh home since the publication of Pinfold. Of brown stone trimmed with grey, the building is attractively comfortable rather than imposing.

Mrs. Waugh and two of her sons, James and Septimus, were waiting to greet us as we stepped out or our taxi. Both young men appear in the family photograph published in the American edition of Alec Waugh's My Brother Evelyn and Other Portraits (1967). Septimus is kneeling at his mother's right, and James, also kneeling, is left of his father.

After greetings and introductions, we were shown into a spacious, circular hall which divides the building into two balanced parts. In its center sits a large round table. At the back, through a corridor a bit smaller in width, a staircase leads to the second floor. To the right as one enters is a large, comfortable drawing room filled with deep chairs and dominated by a massive fireplace on the left. Facing the door, a large window, equipped with a window seat, drew our attention as we were shown in. Through it we could see, as we sipped our sherry, the splendid and richly green countryside and those same rolling hills we saw during our journey.

Evelyn Waugh's library is the first room on the left as one enters the hallway opposite the drawing room. Empty now since the University of Texas acquired the books, their cases, and the furniture for inclusion in a memorial to the writer at the school, its size and brightness nevertheless suggests its appearance when he composed the first volume of his autobiography. Mrs. Waugh indicated that the walls were once crowded with bookcases to the extent that the fireplace could not be used.

The second door on the left off the corridor is the dining room where luncheon was served. Over the doorway hangs a copy in oils of Our Lady of Guadalupe which had been acquired by the Waughs on a trip to Mexico and to whom Mr. Waugh was devoted. On the large Victorian side- board in the dining room sits a copy of the bust of the writer now in the collection of the University of Texas. Evelyn Waugh is in the uniform he wore during his military service. On the head sits the officer's cloth cap which was his during that period of his life.

That cap served as a point of departure for our conversation during luncheon. Mrs. Waugh, reminiscing about her husband's service during the war, noted how much he disliked the physical act of writing but how desperately he missed it when prevented from practicing it especially during his active duty. He wrote in long hand. The manuscript was then edited and typed in two copies both of which he corrected individually by hand. The second was then cannibalized and inserted, whenever needed, into the first copy. Mrs. Waugh indicated that he made increasingly more corrections and alterations in his work as he grew older.

The conversation turned to Catholicism and the changes made in the liturgy of the Mass. We collectively bemoaned the low level of the translations of the service in use. Mr. Hurley observed that it was a pity the English Church had not approached Evelyn Waugh and other authors of note for assistance in the translations. Mrs. Waugh said that he, as well as Graham Greene, had been asked to help. Unfortunately, Mr. Waugh died before he could contribute anything.

We spoke of Mr. Waugh's sharp wit and how devastating it was in print. James Waugh made the point that it was equally sharp in family gatherings, sometimes painfully so. This conversation led to writing and the preparation one must undergo for the life of a writer. Evelyn Waugh firmly believed, Mrs. Waugh noted, that anyone who wanted to become a writer should never read English literature at University. He held that a close study kills one's interest in literature. He preferred that one study history or politics or any other subject.

After the typically English luncheon of beefsteak and kidney pie accompanied by a fine claret, we returned to the drawing room and continued our conversation. We spoke about our favorite Waugh characters, particularly of Agatha Runcible of Vile Bodies, the first Waugh novel I had read. We discussed the question of on whom the character of Agatha was based. Mrs. Waugh indicated that there was no single individual who served as her model. She is a composite, like so many Waugh characters, of characteristics of many of his friends. Evelyn Waugh never drew his characters entirely from life. His imagination seized on certain facets of the people he knew and used them as the seeds from which grew his fictional characters.

We spoke of The Loved One and the motion picture mode from it for which Mrs. Waugh indicated her dislike. She talked of her visit with her husband to California before the novel was written. A limousine was provided daily for them by MGM studios, and every day Mr. Waugh would drive to Forest Lawn because it intrigued him so. It was these visits which served as the inspiration for the book.

She also spoke of the filming of Decline and Fall which she praised. Her observations led to a general discussion of the theatrical dimensions of Evelyn Waugh's novels, others of which, notably Helena and the trilogy were dramatized on the B.B.C. She noted that she had often urged her husband to write a play end he was considering it seriously, but nothing concrete came of it. The time was rapidly approaching when we would hove to return to London. Mrs. Waugh asked her son, James to show us the grove. It lies to the right of the house at the foot of the park on an elevation overlooking the pre-Reformation, now Anglican, parish church.

As we stood before the grave, there was an appealing view of the time-blackened, perpendicular edifice. The grave is simple and dignified, covered by a buff-colored slab of marble on which is engraved "Evelyn Waugh, Writer". The inscription is followed by the birth and death dates and the admonition, Requiescat in Pace, abbreviated. After a brief prayer and a last look at the peaceful scene, we departed.

SOME UNPUBLISHED WAUGH CORRESPONDENCE II

P. A. Doyle (Nassau C.C., SUNY) and Charles E. Linck, Jr. (East Texas State University)

NOTES TOWARD A VARIORUM BRIDESHEAD

Robert Murray Davis (University of Oklahoma)

The textual history of Brideshead Revisited is probably the most complex for the bibliographer and the most rewarding for the student of any Waugh novel, for it exists in at least five variant printed states and those states reveal in concrete terms Waugh's changing attitude towards the style and sometimes towards the characters of his best-known novel. Until the manuscripts and Waugh's correspondence become available, the textual history cannot be traced in detail, but it is possible to indicate at least something about the nature of the problems and the kind of information that textual study can provide.

The variants given below were gathered from a comparison of the Chapman and Hall "revised edition" of 1945 (apparently a new impression rather than a new edition) with a Little, Brown edition of 1945. The variants were then checked against a Chapman and Hall third edition of 1945, a Penguin edition (a 1957 reprinting of a 1951 edition), a Chapman and Hall revised edition of 1960 (this a real revision), and the serial version that appeared in Town and Country from November, 1944, to February, 1945.

Although some anomalies cannot be explained, there appear to be two lines of transmission, American and English. The Little, Brown, and the serial versions are not identical - the serial is heavily cut and has readings that I have not seen elsewhere - but the two generally agree in their variance from the English text, which seems to have been transmitted from the Chapman and Hall editions of 1945 (which appear to be identical) to the Penguin and thence, with considerable revision, to the 1960 edition.

There are two exceptions to this rule, and both suggest the need for further work. The Penguin (p. 7) agrees with the American reading, "a quarter," rather than the English "quarter" (see the first note below), and it agrees with the 1960 version rather than the serial and English and American editions of 1945 in the following passage:

Serial, p. 85; Chapman and Hall 1945, p. 33; Little, Brown 1945, p. 35. "head, where at last we reached the nurseries, high in the dome in the centre of the main black."

Penguin, p. 35; 1960, p. 44. "head. The dome was false, designed to be seen from below like the cupolas of Chambord. Its drum was merely an additional storey full of segmental rooms. Here were the nurseries."

Textual Notes

MISCELLANEA

Addition to Waugh bibliography: I have just seen a booklet called Film en roman, published by De Kim of Amsterdam (1956). This pamphlet published brief statements by several authors who were asked whether the present-day film seems to be the artistic equal of the novel. Waugh's remarks are published on the last page of this sixteen page booklet. He wrote: "The films of all countries have greatly deteriorated during the last five years and will probably deteriorate further. A novel which sells 5000 copies justifies its publication financially. One which sells 50,000 is a great success. A film must please many millions. It must therefore be artistically valueless." (P.A. Doyle)

Additional Review of Alec Waugh's book My Brother Evelyn and Other Portraits :

Lord Kinross, "Kinross on Waugh on Waugh!" Envoy (London), Nov., 1967.

Derwent May (Literary Editor of The Listener), Good Talk: An Anthology from BBC Radio (includes Christopher Sykes, "Evelyn Waugh - the Man,"), Gollancz, London, 1968.

Mrs. W. Glynn of Tanzania, East Africa, who is a pioneer and regular EWN subscriber, writes: "Readers of Vile Bodies with its inimitable character Lottie Crump of Shepheards Hotel who charged the wine bills of moneyless young clientele to the older and richer customers will greatly enjoy The Duchess of Jermyn Street by Daphne Fielding, published by Eyre & Spottiswode, London, 1964. (in USA by Little, Brown). The so-called Duchess of Jermyn Street was one Rosa Lewis of the Cavendish Hotel on whom Evelyn Waugh based his character of Lottie Crump, much to her chagrin as she had a great mistrust of writers. Evelyn Waugh himself wrote the preface to the book and it brings to life, as no other book I have read, the period Waugh so delightfully epitomized in his earlier novels.

David Hudson Wallis II of Tulsa, Oklahoma recently completed a dissertation entitled "A Reading of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited: A Critical Survey and Thematic Analysis." The thesis was directed by Dr. Thomas F. Staley (University of Tulsa), editor of the James Joyce Quarterly. We are happy to publish the official dissertation abstract: "This thesis has been envisioned as a two-part study of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited. The two divisions are at the same time separate and inter-dependent essays. The purpose of the first essay is to show the development of critical opinion on the novel, and to show the changes and various directions of critical approach, with the pre-eminent purpose in mind of showing the novel's centrality in the development of Waugh's artistry. The purpose of the second essay, a thematic analysis, is to trace the symbolism of the "Arcadian" theme, and to note the informing symbolism, through the novel, and to show that it is a definable theme which gives shape and direction not only to the development of the novel and the novel's statement and to the development of the novel's main character, Ryder, but also gives shape and direction to Waugh's world-view and animates Waugh's whole creative process."

BRIEF NEWS AND NOTES

Professor Calvin W. Lane of the University of Hartford writes that he is authoring the critique of Waugh for Twayne's English Authors Series.

We have exchanged newsletters and have had happy correspondence with Frederick L. Morey, editor of the Emily Dickinson Bulletin, 4508 38th Street, Brentwood, Maryland 20722. We recommend this periodical for personal or library orders. Subscription is S2.00 a year.

Coming in future issues will be an article about Waugh's correspondence with Thomas Merton, a synopsis by Charles Linck of Waugh's movie The Scarlet Woman, a commentary about Waugh and Erle Stanley Gardner, and a study of the textual variants in the 1934 and 1964 editions of A Handful of Dust.

The Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, designed to stimulate research and continue interest in the life and writings of Evelyn Waugh, is published three times a year in April, October, and December (Spring, Autumn, and Winter numbers). Subscription rate for libraries and interested individuals: $1.00 a year (10 s in England). Single copy 35 cents. Checks or money orders should be made payable to the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter. Notes, brief essays, and news items about Waugh and his work may be submitted but manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to Dr. P.A. Doyle, c/o English Deportment, Nassau Community College, State University of New York, Garden City, New York 11530.