Title: Brideshead Revisited
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Modern Classic
ISBN: 978-0241585313
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: 1945
Publisher Description: The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognise only his spiritual and social distance from them.
Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.
Literary Atelier Review: This novel takes you into a long forgotten world of English stately homes, aristocratic eccentricity and love, both romantic, plutonic and everything in-between. This novel holds a permanent place in English culture, from the text itself to the popular 1980s television adaptation and even 2023's Saltburn, Brideshead seems ever present in the discourse around Britain, her class system and nostalgia for a long-lost world which may have never existed. For this reason alone, if not also for the beautiful writing and vivid descriptions of England, this novel is a true classic, not to be missed.