Decline and Fall
21 Feb, 2013
820 English and Old English literatures
David Bradshaw, John Bowen and Ann Pasternak Slater join Melvyn Bragg to discuss Evelyn Waugh’s comic novel Decline and Fall. Set partly in a substandard boys’ public school, the novel is a vivid, often riotous portrait of 1920s Britain. Its themes, including modernity, religion and fashionable society, came to dominate Waugh’s later fiction, but its savage wit and economy of style were entirely new. Published when Waugh was 24, the book was immediately celebrated for its vicious satire and biting humour.
Guests
- David Bradshaw
2 episodes
Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, Oxford - John Bowen
6 episodes
Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of York -
Ann Pasternak Slater No other episodes
Senior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford
Reading list
-
Letters of Evelyn Waugh
Mark Amory (ed.) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980) -
Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family
Michael Brennan (Bloomsbury, 2013) Google Books → -
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
Paula Byrne (HarperPress, 2009) Google Books → -
The Brideshead Generation: Evelyn Waugh and his Friends
Humphrey Carpenter (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989) Google Books → -
The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh
Michael Davie (ed.) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976) Google Books → -
Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of a Country Neighbour
Frances Donaldson (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968) Google Books → -
The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh
Donat Gallagher (ed.) (Methuen, 1983) -
Evelyn Waugh: A Biography
Selina Hastings (Vintage, 1995) Google Books → -
The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography
Douglas Lane Patey (Blackwell, 1998) Google Books → -
Evelyn Waugh: The Complete Short Stories
Ann Pasternak Slater (ed.) (Everyman, 1998) Google Books → -
Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903-1939
Martin Stannard (Dent, 1986) Google Books → -
Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of an Artist
F. J. Stopp (Chapman & Hall, 1958) Google Books → -
Evelyn Waugh: A Biography
Christopher Sykes (Collins, 1975) Google Books → -
Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family
Alexander Waugh (Headline, 2004) Google Books → -
A Little Learning: The First Volume of an Autobiography
Evelyn Waugh (published first 1964, various publishers ) Google Books → -
No Abiding City: 1939-1966
Evelyn Waugh (Dent, 1992) -
Vile Bodies
Evelyn Waugh (published first 1930, various publishers ) Google Books →
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Programme ID: b01qmbsc
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qmbsc
Auto-category: 823.912 (British fiction–20th century)