Description
Book SynopsisA Handful of Mischief: New Essays on Evelyn Waugh is a collection of essays based on presentations at the Evelyn Waugh Centenary Conference at Hertford College, Oxford, in 2003. There are twelve different essays by authors from various countries, including Australia, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The essays cover a wide range of material, from Waugh's early novel Black Mischief (1932) to his last travel book, A Tourist in Africa (1960). In addition to essays on well-known novels such as Scoop (1938), Brideshead Revisited (1945), and Helena (1950), the collection includes papers on Waugh's library, his changing conception of Oxford, his writing about religious conversion, and his role in the British evacuation of Crete in 1941. The authors approach Waugh and his work in various ways, and innovative essays explore sovereignty, post-colonialism, and adaptation for radio. Contributors: Baron Alder, Peter G. Christensen, Robert Murray Davis, Marcel DeCoste, Patrick Denman Flanery, Donat Gallagher, Irina Kabanova, Dan S. Kostopulos, Lewis MacLeod, John W. Mahon, Richard W. Oram, Ann Pasternak Slater, John Howard Wilson.
Trade ReviewPasternak Slater usefully explores the many ways reversal can play out, and relates the literary procedure to Waugh's own real-life experiences in Abyssinia. * Evelyn Waugh Studies *
Table of Contents1 Acknowledgements 2 Abbreviations 3 Introduction Chapter 4 1. Evelyn Waugh, Bookman Chapter 5 2. A Walking Tour of Evelyn Waugh's Oxford Chapter 6 3. "A Later Developement": Evelyn Waugh and Conversion Chapter 7 4."That Glittering, Intangible Western Culture": "Civilizing" Missions and the Crisis of Tradition in Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief Chapter 8 5. Sovereign Power in Evelyn Waugh's Edmund Campion and Helena Chapter 9 6. Waffle Scramble: Waugh's Art in Scoop Chapter 10 7. Violence, Duplicity, and Frequent Malversation:Robbery under Law and Evelyn Waugh's Political Critique Chapter 11 8. Homosexuality in Brideshead Revisited:"Something quite remote from anything the [builder] intended" Chapter 12 9. The World's Anachronism: The Timelessness of the Secular in Evelyn Waugh's Helena Chapter 13 10. Guy Crouchback's Disillusion: Crete, Beevor, and the Soviet Alliance in Sword of Honor Chapter 14 11. The BBC Brideshead, 1956, or Whatever Happened to Celia, Sex, and Syphilis? Chapter 15 12. Eyes Reopened:A Tourist in Africa 16 Notes on Contributors 17 Index
