The Complete Short Stories (Everyman's Library) [Hardcover]

Evelyn Waugh (Author)

Book Description

Series: Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics | Publication Date: September 5, 2000

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Evelyn Waugh's short stories are the marvelous, concentrated riffs of his comic genius, revealing in miniaturized perfection all the elements that made him the greatest comic writer of our century. We find in them Waugh's almost superhuman technical skill as a writer and his quicksilver attentiveness to the minutiae of human absurdity, as well as his worldly knowledge, his tenderness, his perceptive compassion, and his sophisticated, disabused, but nevertheless forceful idealism.

The thirty-nine stories collected here include such small masterpieces as "Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" and "Scott-King's Modern Europe"; an alternative ending to Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust; a "missing chapter" in the life of Charles Ryder, the hero of Brideshead Revisited; and two linked stories, remnants of an abandoned novel that Waugh considered his best writing.

This edition contains the original illustrations to "Love Among the Ruins," as well as more than thirty graphics produced by the author as an Oxford undergraduate in the 1920s.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“As a writer of satiric and comic stories, Evelyn Waugh remains unmatched among modern writers.”
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“One of the century's great masters of English prose . . . It is never too late to read or reread Evelyn Waugh.”
—TIME

“Fascinating . . . These stories reveal the depth of the conflict between the writer and the world he had fallen into . . . [They] also reveal an unexpected and schoolboyish delight in twists . . . His best writing is indeed noble, almost sublime.”
—THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (LONDON)

With a new Introduction by Ann Pasternak Slater

From the Inside Flap

Evelyn Waugh's short stories are the marvelous, concentrated riffs of his comic genius, revealing in miniaturized perfection all the elements that made him the greatest comic writer of our century. We find in them Waugh's almost superhuman technical skill as a writer and his quicksilver attentiveness to the minutiae of human absurdity, as well as his worldly knowledge, his tenderness, his perceptive compassion, and his sophisticated, disabused, but nevertheless forceful idealism.  

The thirty-nine stories collected here include such small masterpieces as "Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" and "Scott-King's Modern Europe"; an alternative ending to Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust; a "missing chapter" in the life of Charles Ryder, the hero of Brideshead Revisited; and two linked stories, remnants of an abandoned novel that Waugh considered his best writing.

This edition contains the original illustrations to "Love Among the Ruins," as well as more than thirty graphics produced by the author as an Oxford undergraduate in the 1920s.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 774 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library (September 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375404309
• ISBN-13: 978-0375404306
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waugh. As always, superb., May 15, 2009

By 

P. B. McCaffery (Notre Dame, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

Evelyn Waugh cannot be outdone. He can never cease to please. His style is sly, it is witty, and of course contagiously beautiful, which I will make no effort to explain. Just read him. One cannot have an expectation too high to be fulfilled.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Golden Oldies Here, November 5, 2007

By 

Stephanie DePue (Carolina Beach, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

"The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh," major, British writer of the twentieth century, who tended to comedy, is certainly the product of thorough editing, including, as it does, several of his short short juvenile, and Oxford, pieces. It also includes several fragments of novels excised from the final, or never completed, and, of course, the many stories Waugh published in magazines during his lifetime.

The earliest work, dating from the 1920's, shows Waugh as the skillful, amusing and witty social commentator we see in the novels then published, such as, "A Handful of Dust," and "Decline and Fall." "Bella Fleace Gave A Party," published in "Harpers' Bazaar," U.K., and U.S, is an amazingly brief masterpiece of social detail, as an Irish landowner sets about giving her last ball. If you've never given a ball, you could follow the instructions Waugh gives -- though, thankfully, we don't have to lick stamps anymore -- and give one successfully. Mind you, though, success will require mailing the invites. "The Man Who Liked Dickens," substantially expanded, became the ending of "Handful;" that novel's alternate ending is also published here. Two chapters of an unfinished novel give us an entertaining closeup of the wealthy bohemian social life of the period.

From somewhat later in his career, World War II and afterwards, we find "Charles Ryder's Schooldays," excised from Waugh's masterwork, "Brideshead Revisited." The level of detail and dialogue in this is such as to lead a reader to think the young Waugh must have been keeping voluminous diaries before he could spell properly. "Compassion" is a bitter World War II story about the wartime treatment of Jews: his characters did not always seem that fond of the race. "Love Among The Ruins," set in the post-war period, is apparently Waugh's only stab at science fiction, and not too successful. "Scott-King's Modern Europe" is hilarious, and witty too. Consider his resonant description of air travel:

"He had left his hotel at seven o'clock that morning; it was now past noon and he was still on English soil. He had not been ignored. He had been shepherded in and out of charabancs and offices like an idiot child; he had been weighed and measured like a load of merchandise; he had been searched like a criminal; he had been cross-questioned about his past and his future, the state of his health and of his finances, as though he were applying for permanent employment of a confidential nature. Scott-King had not been nurtured in luxury and privilege, but this was not how he used to travel. And he had eaten nothing except a piece of flaccid toast and margarine in his bedroom....<A> voice said: 'Passengers for Bellacita will now proceed to Exit D,' .... while, simultaneously, the conductress appeared in the doorway and said: 'Follow me, please. Have your embarkation papers, medical cards, customs clearance slips, currency control vouchers, passports, tickets, identity dockets, travel orders, emigration certificates, baggage checks and security sheets ready for inspection at the barrier, please.'"

After all that, the man's got to sneak back into the country. If this sort of thing is your cup of tea, then it'll be your cup of tea.