A major figure in twentieth-century British literature, Evelyn Waugh captured in his novels the attitudes, foibles, and virtues of the British upper classes. From the nostalgic romanticism of Brideshead Revisited (1945) to the black comedy of The Loved One (1948), his fiction presents a world that is exaggerated and distorted but, nevertheless, familiar to his readers. His travel writing, in contrast, describes people, places, and ways of life that are unfamiliar to his audience.

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was born on 28 October 1903 in West Hampstead, a London suburb, to Arthur Waugh, managing director of the publishing firm Chapman and Hall, and Catherine Raban Waugh. Evelyn Waugh remained at home beyond the age that was typical for English boys of his class because of an appendicitis attack he suffered when he was eight. When he did begin boarding school, at age twelve, he had to enroll at Lancing rather than...