Admiral Cod On Tour: Northern California

Highway 1, Big Sur, CA

Hunting With Hounds

The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh

Roman Catholic reactionary badass

Introduction to the Project

The Complete Works project is working with Oxford University Press to print all Waugh's extant writings and graphic art: novels, biographies, travel writing, short fiction, essays, articles, reportage, reviews, letters (about 85% of which are currently unpublished), diaries, poems, juvenilia, parerga, drawings and designs in 42 beautifully crafted volumes. It's quite an undertaking - and a very exciting one.

The project will revolutionise Waugh studies and influence twentieth-century literary and cultural studies more broadly too. The expert editors of our new volumes will place Waugh’s works within their rich literary and historical context, enabling us to greatly expand our knowledge of the range and complexity of Waugh's thinking and artistic practice, linking this to the work of his contemporaries in Britain, America and Europe. No other edition of a British novelist has been undertaken on this scale.

Our editors have been given permission by the Evelyn Waugh Estate to quote freely from the writer's published and unpublished materials, a privilege never before available to Waugh scholars.

The Complete Works project was initiated by Alexander Waugh, Waugh's grandson, who curates the massive Evelyn Waugh Archive at his home in Somerset. Alexander is the edition's General Editor. Professor David Bradshaw and I then became involved as Co-Executive Editors, submitting a successful bid to the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support the work.

As I am Principal Investigator, the project is based at the University of Leicester. Cutting-edge digital humanities technology, driven by our Research Associate Dr Barbara Cooke, is at the heart of what we are doing, using this website as a research tool and global seminar space for our editors, Waugh students and enthusiasts alike. Anyone who has anything to add to Waugh's story is encouraged to use the Waugh Forum and comment on the project blog, Waugh and Words. We have also pulled together the best Waugh resources on the web, and are working on some new ones ourselves, in order to make the best range of research and study materials available in one place. Back in the physical world, the International Conference 2015, the Book Club, and all our Project Partner events over the next four years are open to the public.

In my early years at Leicester I edited Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage (1984), and wrote a two-volume biography of Waugh (1986, 1992). Since then I've worked on other authors - Ford Madox Ford and Muriel Spark in particular - but it is a great delight to return to Waugh and we hope that all those who become involved with this research, at whatever level, will find equal pleasure in his writing. No matter how well-read you are in Evelyn Waugh, you're bound to discover reams of new material in our planned edition. Those unpublished letters and unexpurgated diaries might cause quite a stir. Watch out for the first volumes in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of Waugh's death.

Although work proper on the edition began in 2009, the groundwork was laid a long time before and the project is in many ways the culmination of half a century of Waugh studies. In 1967 Paul. A. Doyle published the first Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, which year by year amassed details of all the primary and secondary Evelyn Waugh material its contributors could find. This project could not be possible without the work of Doyle and his colleagues, particularly Robert Murray Davis and Donat Gallagher, who are now editors on our new edition of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh.

Martin Stannard
Professor of Modern English Literature
School of English
University of Leicester

Cricket at Westminster

Cricket at Westminster

For King And Country

Trans Europe Express (Kraftwerk)

The Death or Glory Boys

Lord Flashheart

Rik Mayall RIP

Royal Duty

In the wake of the Duchess of Cambridge's recent dress mishaps, it has come to my attention that the Palace has hired a female 'minder' to accompany her to ensure embarrassing incidents like these don't occur again. As a loyal supporter of the Crown, I should like it be known that I am perfectly willing and able to monitor her backside 24/7 to prevent further predicaments. I hereby offer my services. You know where to find me.

In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (Documentary)

Brylcreem: Brilliantly Classic

"It's Bryl!"

After popping into my local gentleman's barber for a quick touch-up, I noticed on the shelf that Brylcreem have recently updated their packaging (at left). It has a nice retro feel to it. And as you know, retro is all the rage these days.

Brylcreem has been around since 1928. I've been wearing it off and on since the late 1980s. It has a very distinctive odour, which I find pleasantly reassuring. I've dated women who said it provokes memories of their father. That might not be a good thing if you have designs on their panties, but I persevere anyway.

As you know, I favour a nice tight short hairstyle with the front slicked back or to the side. It seems to have caught on among the youth. In recent years I've noticed a lot of younger chaps with short back-n-sides haircuts and pompadours, which they comb back with cream or gel. I suspect part of Brylcreem's strategy is is to increase their share of this market. Best of luck to them. In local surf towns, the hair product of choice seems to be Hawleywood's Layrite Deluxe Pomade.

Brylcreem remains a classic of grooming accoutrements for chaps.

Cali Jugend