Person | Male Born 1903 Died 1966

Evelyn Waugh

Categories: Literature, Seriously Famous

Writer. Born 11 Hillfield Road, West Hampstead. Wrote "Decline and Fall", "Brideshead Revisited". And we have to tell you the strange but true fact that Waugh's first wife's name was also Evelyn. Their friends resorted to the terminology of "she-Evelyn" and "he-Evelyn". The Evelyns had a disastrous honeymoon during which she caught pneumonia. In 1928 they moved into a flat at 17a Canonbury Square. She then admitted to an affair and with their marriage barely 15 months old he filed for divorce.

For other examples of this affinity for similar names see Jean Rhys and Julian Huxley.

Waugh could be wickedly funny. An entry in his diary for March 1964, on hearing that doctors had removed a benign tumour from the much-disliked Randolph Churchill, has Waugh saying "A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it."

Died at home in Somerset.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Evelyn Waugh

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Evelyn Waugh

English Heritage Evelyn Waugh, 1903 - 1966, writer, lived here.

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