“I will not stand for being called a woman in my own house…”
- #wikiquote
- #quote
Figure timeline
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945), and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour (1952–1961). He is recognised as one of the great prose stylists…
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
culture · British writer and journalist (1903–1966) · war correspondent · novelist · writer · autobiographer · screenwriter · science fiction writer · diarist · prose writer · short story writer · journalist · also Evelyn Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh, Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, Waugh
Born 28 October 1903 · Died 10 April 1966 · Q107002
68 published statements · 0 followers
See & hear
Photos & media
12 photos
Media from Wikimedia Commons, hotlinked at the source under its own licence — see each file for author and terms.
Live now
In the news
Pulling headlines from trusted outlets — this usually takes a few seconds
Checking the wires…
Feed scan
These are live links, not archived citations — they only join the timeline once a collect run verifies and archives them.
Live pulse
Recent highlights
Most recent outstanding titles, awards, and quotes
- Quote
- Quote
2026· 6 entries
“You see my adjutant made rather a silly mistake. He hadn't had much truck with boots before and the silly fellow thought they were extra rations. My men ate the whole bag of tricks last night.”
- #wikiquote
- #quote
“I get mine spreading alarm and despondency”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
“How do you get your main pleasure in life, Sir William?”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
“I have modified the grosser passages but not obliterated them because they are an essential part of the book”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
“Nothing is more insulting to a novelist than to assume that he is incapable of anything but the mere transcription of what he observes”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
2022· 5 entries
The Guardian: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead mansion sold for £3m despite tenants refusing to leave
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: Evelyn Waugh’s once-beloved Cotswold mansion up for auction at £2.5m
- #news
- #headline
America Magazine: A portrait of Evelyn Waugh, Christian wayfarer
- #news
- #headline
The Atlantic: Evelyn Waugh: The Best and the Worst
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: The private diaries of Evelyn Waugh, 1973
- #news
- #headline
2020· 1 entry
National Catholic Register: Brideshead and Beyond: The Genius of Evelyn Waugh
- #news
- #headline
2019· 2 entries
Mental Floss: 12 Surprising Facts About Evelyn Waugh
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: Evelyn Waugh letters shed light on his abandoned first novel
- #news
- #headline
2017· 2 entries
Wall Street Journal: Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall’ Resonates After Brexit
- #news
- #headline
The Atlantic: Evelyn Waugh Faces Life and Vice Versa
- #news
- #headline
2016· 1 entry
Observer: Time Magazine Put Evelyn Waugh on a List of Female Authors
- #news
- #headline
2014· 1 entry
Town & Country: T&C Family Album: Evelyn Waugh
- #news
- #headline
2012· 1 entry
Published “Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC” in Physics Letters B — cited 6,801 times.
- #crossref
- #research
- #work
2009· 1 entry
British Comedy Guide: Evelyn Waugh
- #news
- #headline
1988· 1 entry
Vile Bodies (filmed as Bright Young Things) in 2003 and Brideshead Revisited again in 2008
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1983· 1 entry
Revealing a fuller range of his ideas and beliefs
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1980· 1 entry
A selection of his letters was published, his reputation became the subject of further discussion
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1975· 1 entry
Between 1980 and 1998 three more full biographies were issued and other biographical and critical studies have continued to be produced
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1973· 1 entry
Waugh's diaries were serialised in The Observer prior to publication in book form in 1976
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1967· 1 entry
But the impact of Granada's Brideshead was much wider
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1966· 3 entries
Died 1966-04-10.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #death
“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:en
- #lang:pt
- #multi-edition
Acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited (1981)
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1965· 2 entries
A new financial crisis arose from an apparent flaw in the terms of the "Save the Children" trust, and a large sum of back tax was being demanded
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Was the editing of the three war novels into a single volume, published as Sword of Honour
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1964· 1 entry
Waugh's often oblique tone and discreet name changes ensured that friends avoided the embarrassments that some had feared
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1962· 1 entry
Waugh began work on his autobiography, and that same year wrote his final fiction, the long short story Basil Seal Rides Again
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1960· 1 entry
Waugh was offered the honour of a CBE but declined, believing that he should have been given the superior status of a knighthood
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1959· 2 entries
Expressed a hope that the Conservatives would win that year's election, which they did, but would not vote for them, saying "I should feel I was morally inculpated in their follies" and added: "I do not aspire to advi
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
At the request of publishers Chapman and Hall and in some deference to his critics, Waugh revised the book and wrote in a preface: "I have modified the grosser passages but not obliterated them because they are an essent
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1958· 1 entry
Of Pope John XXIII and wrote an appreciative tribute on the pope's death in 1963
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1956· 2 entries
The family moved to Combe Florey House in the Somerset village of Combe Florey
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Edwin Newman made a short film about Waugh
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1954· 2 entries
“the goading of a bull by matadors”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
Waugh's doctors, concerned by his physical deterioration, advised a change of scene
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1953· 1 entry
In a radio interview, he named Augustus Egg (1816–1863) as a painter for whom he had particular esteem
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1952· 2 entries
Awarded James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1952).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Waugh published Men at Arms, the first of his semi-autobiographical war trilogy in which he depicted many of his personal experiences and encounters from the early stages of the war
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1951· 2 entries
That "the Conservative Party have never put the clock back a single second"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Visited the Holy Land with his future biographer, Christopher Sykes, and in 1953, he travelled to Goa to witness the final exhibition before burial of the remains of the 16th-century Jesuit missionary-priest Francis X
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1950· 2 entries
Helena was received indifferently by the public and by critics, who disparaged the awkward mixing of 20th-century schoolgirl slang with otherwise reverential prose
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
As a means of tax avoidance, he had set up a trust fund for his children (he termed it the "Save the Children Fund", after the well-established charity of that name) into which he placed the initial advance and all futur
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1949· 1 entry
Waugh explained that his conversion followed his realisation that life was "unintelligible and unendurable without God"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1946· 1 entry
“you can only leave God out [of fiction] by making your characters pure abstractions”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1945· 2 entries
Waugh said that Pablo Picasso's artistic standing was the result of a "mesmeric trick" and that his paintings "could not be intelligently discussed in the terms used of the civilised masters"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“s artistic standing was the result of a”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1942· 1 entry
With Put Out More Flags, which sold well despite wartime restrictions on paper and printing
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1938· 1 entry
Indicated a return to Waugh's earlier comic style
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1936· 1 entry
Awarded Hawthornden Prize (1936).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1935· 1 entry
Caused controversy by its forthright pro-Catholic, anti-Protestant stance but brought its writer the Hawthornden Prize
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1933· 1 entry
On a Greek islands cruise, he was introduced by Father D'Arcy to Gabriel Herbert, eldest daughter of the late explorer Aubrey Herbert
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1930· 1 entry
Waugh was the novelist of the Bright Young People generation
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1925· 3 entries
“She bullied me into the Church”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
And of whom Waugh later wrote, "She bullied me into the Church"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“Claud and I took Audrey to supper and sat up until 7 in the morning arguing about the Roman Church”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1915· 1 entry
The school asked Evelyn's elder brother Alec to leave after a homosexual relationship came to light
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1914· 1 entry
After the First World War began, Waugh and other boys from the Boy Scout Troop of Heath Mount School were sometimes employed as messengers at the War Office; Evelyn loitered about the War Office in hope of glimpsing Lord
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1907· 1 entry
The Waugh family left Hillfield Road for Underhill, a house that Arthur had built in North End Road, Hampstead, close to Golders Green, then a semi-rural area of dairy farms, market gardens and bluebell woods
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1903· 1 entry
Born 1903-10-28.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #birth
1902· 1 entry
Became managing director of Chapman and Hall, publishers of the works of Charles Dickens
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1893· 1 entry
He had married Catherine Raban in 1893; their first son Alexander Raban Waugh (always known as Alec) was born on 8 July 1898.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #life
- #family-background
1866· 1 entry
Was Evelyn's father, Arthur Waugh
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event