Born to a publisher, Evelyn Waugh was educated at Lancing College and Hertford College, Oxford. After a brief stint working as a schoolmaster, he transitioned to full-time writing. He quickly established himself in the literary world with his early satirical novels, such as Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934). During this period, he developed a fondness for aristocratic circles and country house society, which heavily influenced his writing.
Throughout the 1930s, Waugh traveled extensively, working as a foreign correspondent and reporting on events like the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. He served in the British armed forces during World War II, experiences that inspired his acclaimed wartime trilogy, Sword of Honour. In 1945, he published his most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited, which explored themes of aristocracy and Catholic faith.
A convert to Catholicism in 1930, Waugh was deeply traditionalist, opposing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. His later years were marked by declining health, opposition to the postwar welfare state, and a struggle with mental health, which he fictionalized in his work. Despite his public persona of indifference, he remained a dedicated writer and loyal friend until his death in 1966. Today, he is recognized as one of the finest English prose stylists of the twentieth century.
