Online exclusive: Brutal Acts of Civility

The prose of Evelyn Waugh is regarded as masterful by all, and unmatched by many. Nearly 50 years after the death of the English author and journalist, his novels and satires remain masterpieces of style and wit. Here are some of the finest works from the early career of England’s most elegantly English satirist.

“Decline & Fall” (1928)

Waugh’s first published novel is a viciously funny social satire that lampoons British society in the 1920s. Based largely on the author’s own experiences studying at Oxford, “Decline & Fall” finds Waugh at once in love with and reviled by civilized England. The novel’s grave tone of morality and extensive use of black humor is such that the first edition came inscribed with the following author’s note: “Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY.”

“Vile Bodies” (1930)

One of the first truly modern novels of the English language, “Vile Bodies” was heavily influenced by cinema. It is also one of the first novels in which much of the dialogue takes place on the telephone. Fragmented dialogue and an abundance of frantic scene changes are contrasted by an ingeniously dry and detached narration. The plot satirizes a decadent London society of the wealthy elite called Bright Young People, which was also the working title of the book.  Waugh changed the title prior to publishing for fear that the phrase had become a cliché. This modern novel of the 1930s aged well enough that David Bowie cited it as his primary influence in writing the song “Alladin Sane.”

“A Handful of Dust” (1934)

This comedy of manners brought Waugh his largest success, cemented his reputation as a force in the literary world and is widely considered one of the great novels of the 20th century. In his farcical examination of the upper class pretentions of civility in all things, Waugh tells the story of a man obsessed with his aging estate, his disinterested wife and the lower class social climber with whom she has an affair. When the wife expresses her desire to leave him, the man endeavors to avoid scandal at all costs, venturing into the jungles of Brazil on an expedition to manufacture some artifice or pretense for a proper divorce. Only a few years earlier Waugh’s own wife had an affair with his close friend before asking the shocked author for a quiet divorce. Waugh yielded, and in his heartache wrote what many consider his finest work.

“Scoop” (1938)

The magic of Waugh’s satires owed to as much to merciless realism as they did to extraordinary and farcical circumstances. “Scoop” is his hateful yet loving ode to the journalism trade that he plied throughout his lifetime, and it finds the author in the prime of his career. A young and impoverished man is dragooned into becoming a foreign correspondent for The Daily Beast after being mistaken for a famous writer who shares his surname. Our hero blunders his way through a fictional African nation on the brink of civil war, and despite his ineptitude manages to get the scoop, only to lose his undeserved prize to one even less deserving. This is Waugh at his very best, and that is English at its very best.