Reading list
Waugh Starter
For a reading group beginning Evelyn Waugh, in a suggested order
- Decline and Fall (1928) — Evelyn Waugh: Start with the comedy: savage, hilarious, and public domain in the U.S. since 2024.
- Vile Bodies (1930) — Evelyn Waugh: Bright Young Things and the void beneath them; public domain since 2026.
- A Handful of Dust (1934) — Evelyn Waugh: The darkest of the satires; the first Waugh after his 1930 conversion.
- Scoop (1938) — Evelyn Waugh: His newspaper satire, the funniest book he wrote.
- Brideshead Revisited: The great Catholic novel. Read it after the comedies to feel the change.
- Helena (1950) — Evelyn Waugh: Waugh’s favourite of his novels: St. Helena and the finding of the True Cross.
- Sword of Honour (1952–61) — Evelyn Waugh: The war trilogy: Guy Crouchback’s Catholic vocation amid the collapse of honour.
- Edmund Campion (1935) — Evelyn Waugh: Waugh’s life of the Jesuit martyr; written as thanks for his reception.