Bibliography

A List of his Fiction, Travel and Biographical Works

Evelyn Waugh, 1903-1966, was considered to be one of the leading English prose writers of the 20th century. We’ve gathered together a list of his fiction, travel and biographical works. The list starts with his writing when still a juvenile and then an undergraduate worker.

Where to start?

Juvenilia and undergraduate writing

    1. The Curse of the Horse Race – 1910
    2. Fidon’s Confection – 1910-14
    3. Multa Pecunia – 1912
    4. The World to Come: A Poem in Three Cantos – 1916
    5. Untitled: Fragment of a Novel – 1920
    6. Essay (story fragment) – 1921
    7. The House: An Anti-Climax – 1921
    8. Portrait of Young Man with Career – 1923
    9. Antony, Who Sought Things That Were Lost – 1923
  1. Edward of Unique Achievement – 1923
  2. They Dine With the Past – 1923
  3. Conspiracy to Murder – 1923
  4. Unacademic Exercise: A Nature Story – 1923
  5. The National Game – 1923

Novels

  1. The Temple at Thatch – 1924-25 – an unpublished novel that was his first attempt at full-length fiction. He started writing it in 1924. but burned the manuscript after his friend Harold Acton commented unfavourably.
  2. Decline and Fall – 1928 – this was Waugh’s first published novel and is based in part on his schooldays at Lancing College, undergraduate years at Hertford College, Oxford and his experience as a teacher at Arnold House in north Wales. It’s a social satire that employs his famous black humour in lampooning various features of British society in the 1920s.
  3. Vile Bodies – 1930 – this is a novel that satirises the decadent young London society between the two World Wars.
  4. Black Mischief – 1932 – this novel chronicles the efforts of the English-educated Emperor Seth, assisted by a fellow Oxford graduate, Basil Deal, to modernise his Empire. This was a fictional African island of Azania, located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa.
  5. A Handful of Dust – 1934 – tells the tale of a shallow English country squire who, having been betrayed by his wife, joins an expedition to the Brazilian jungle, only to find himself trapped in a remote outpost as the prisoner of a maniac.
  6. Scoop – 1938 – this novel is a satire of sensationalist journalism and foreign correspondents.

More Novels

  1. My Father’s House – 1939
  2. Work Suspended – 1939
  3. Put Out More Flags – 1942
  4. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder – 1945
  5. The Loved One – 1948
  6. Helena – 1950
  7. Men at Arms – 1952
  8. Love Among the Ruins – 1953
  9. Officers and Gentlemen – 1955
  10. The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – 1957
  11. Unconditional Surrender – 1961
  12. Sword of Honour trilogy – 1965

Short fiction

  • The Balance: A Yarn of the Good Old Days of Broad Trousers and High Necked Jumpers – 1925
  • A House of Gentlefolks – 1927
  • The Manager of The Kremlin – 1930
  • Love in the Slump – 1932
  • Too Much Tolerance – 1932
  • Excursion in Reality – 1932
  • Incident in Azania – 1932
  • Bella Fleace Gave a Party – 1932
  • Cruise – 1933
  • The Man Who Liked Dickens – 1933
  • Out of Depth – 1933
  • By Special Request – 1934
  • Period Piece – 1934
  • Mr Loveday’s Little Outing – 1935
  • Winner Takes All – 1936
  • An Englishman’s Home – 1938
  • The Sympathetic Passenger – 1939
  • Charles Ryder’s Schooldays – 1945
  • Scott-Kings Modern Europe – 1946
  • Tactical Exercise – 1947
  • Compassion – 1949
  • Basil Seal Rides Again – 1962

Bookcase with collection

Travel writing

  1. Labels: A Mediterranean Journal – 1930
  2. Remote People – 1931
  3. Ninety-two Days: The Account of a Tropical Journey Through British Guiana and Part of Brazil
  4. Waugh in Abyssinia – 1936
  5. Robbery Under Law – 1939
  6. When the Going Was Good – 1946
  7. The Holy Places – 1952
  8. A Tourist in Africa – 1960

Biography and autobiography

  1. Rossetti: His Life and Works – 1928
  2. Edmund Campion: Jesuit and Martyr – 1935
  3. The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox – 1959
  4. A Little Learning: the First Volume of an Autobiography – 1964
  5. The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh – 1919-1965
  6. The Letters of Evelyn Waugh – 1914-1966

Miscellaneous works

Wine in Peace and War – 1947

A Selection from the Occasional Sermons of The Right Reverend Monsignor Ronald Knox – 1949