Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited - Softcover

If you like your Waugh fast, furious and funny, there is much to enjoy in Philip Eade's sparkling Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited ... Waugh's letters are a joy to read, and Eade's coup is his access to a hitherto unpublished cache of them (Paula Byrne THE TIMES)

Eade isn't a standard literary biographer; he is, by instinct and preference, an entertainer ... He is an assiduous researcher with a considerable narrative gift. He also, crucially, likes his subject. Waugh never much cared what anyone thought of him, but Eade does, and time and again he finds justification for what previous biographers have considered questionable behaviour. He also has a nice, wry turn of phrase ... this is an exemplary piece of work (Marcus Berkmann DAILY MAIL Book of the Week)

Brisk and entertaining ... intelligent and illuminating ... the best single-volume life of the author available. To read A Life Revisited is to experience a reckoning with a man whose life, like his work, is both a solace and a stimulus (Matthew Adams IRISH TIMES)

Essential ... Eade's pacey new biography delivers the raw material of Waugh's life ... treat the Waugh aficionado in your life (SUNDAY TIMES Books of the Year)

For even more laughs, Philip Eade's Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited demonstrates that Waugh's life, already done by divers hands, really is worth another visit (John Banville GUARDIAN Best Books of 2016)

Anyone with the slightest interest in Evelyn Waugh - and who has not been intrigued by his steady return to favour? - should buy, and keep, Philip Eade's Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited. Why? Because it is packed with brand new, fascinating information about Waugh, his family, his friends and lovers. As well, it 'rebalances' a number of entrenched, skewed perceptions of man and soldier. And it is irresistibly readable (Donat Gallagher, editor of THE ESSAYS, ARTICLES AND REVIEWS OF EVELYN WAUGH)

[I]t is the force of Waugh's energy - creative, sexual and social - that crackles through the pages of Philip Eade's meticulous and wildly entertaining biography ... Eade supplies an astonishing wealth of detail ... and is sympathetic to Waugh's many failings without being sycophantic (Martin Townsend DAILY EXPRESS)

Eade's new biography draws on unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs to explore the eccentric larger-than-life story of one of the most acclaimed novelists of the 20th century. Will send readers back to the novels in droves (FINANCIAL TIMES Books of the Year)

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited represents a sort of tipping point: Eade's even-handedness gently but firmly nudges Waugh's work centre stage again ... Eade is excellent on tracing the sources of Waugh's delights and horrors, from his life to his work and back again: the failures, the successes, the disappointments, the endless grist to the authorial mill (Ian Sansom LITERARY REVIEW)

Philip Eade makes the case that now is the time to revisit Waugh and see if some of the old charges of cynicism, snobbery and emotional cruelty really hold true. The result is a bright, breezy and sympathetic portrait that stops just the right side of sentimental (Kathryn Hughes MAIL ON SUNDAY)

Philip Eade is the author of three highly acclaimed biographies: Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters (2007), Young Prince Philip (2011) and Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited (2016). Born in Shropshire and educated at Marlborough and at Bristol University, where he read History, he now lives in London with his wife and daughter.