Evelyn Waugh: A Biography.

Davis, Robert Murray

Christopher Sykes and Martin Standard, the two previous biographers of Evelyn Waugh, were, respectively, indolent and impertinent. Sykes did not bother to consult large bodies of archival material for his authorized biography, depending in large part instead on his personal and sometimes painful knowledge of Waugh. Stannard's research was excellent, but he took the role of inquisitor, imputing the worst possible motives to Waugh on almost every occasion.

Selina Hastings set out to write something between a memoir and an academic biography: "a narrative account aiming to give as close an impression as possible of what it was like to know Evelyn Waugh, even something of what it was like to be Evelyn Waugh." Neither was entirely pleasant, but her portrait is more temperate and objective than those of her predecessors. she recognizes Waugh's shortcomings, but she does not take them personally.

By any standards, the body of information Hastings presents is an advance. Various archives have acquired material not available to Standard, and the body of published material has grown considerably since his research was completed. Furthermore, through her connections with the Mitford family and other member -- and descendants -- of the circles in which Waugh moved, she had access to materials that no one else has seen. Again and again her notes cite Private collection."

However, while Hastings has done valuable scholarly work, her notes, and lack of them, indicate that she is not a scholar. In a number of tantalizing instances she recounts new information about Waugh without attribution, apparently on the theory that if it is not quoted, it need not be cited. General readers will not be disturbed; scholars will be curious about where the information came from and with what degree of reliability it can be regarded.

In other cases, American scholars, some of whom have grown paranoid about the English tendency to use borrowed ideas without giving credit, may suspect that Hastings has followed suit. Perhaps they will be reassured to learn that, in one instance where this seems possible, she has summarized accurately.

Those seeking enlightenment about Waugh's books should look elsewhere. Hastings gives competent summaries of the novels, with a few errors of fact, but she is not much interested in Waugh as a writer.

However, even those most expert on Waugh's life and work will find a wealth of new material about the people and places significant in his life, including oddments like a novel by Bryan Guinness based in part on the collapse of Waugh's first marriage, the source of "Trim" Asquith's nickname, and the fact that Cecil Beaton's diaries, which Waugh thought characteristically bad, were the work of a paid ghost writer.

More important, Hastings gives the most balanced account to date of Waugh's character, faults and virtues alike. Social position does not account for everything, even in Waugh's novels, but it gave Hastings an advantage which she has exploited very well indeed.