Monday, December 26, 2005

A Waugh Christmas

Evelyn Waugh liked to send out satirical Christmas cards, and the apex (or nadir] of this practice was reached during the Christmas season of 1929. Waugh's card that year consisted of extracts reprinted from unfavorable reviews of his first novel, Decline and Fall. The harshest passage of all was taken from a review by Chesterton. [Christopher Sykes, Evelyn Waugh, Boston, 1975, p. 98]
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1 comment:

Nancy C. Brown said...

What a very unusual idea. The very opposite of what people do in their Christmas letters, where only the good is reported.
This shows a very odd side of Waugh's personality; maybe he did it out of humility, or to reverse-brag, or just to be different.
These days, the only thing people seem to do that's different is sign their dog's name along with the kids.

10:28 PM

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