Book description
Author, publisher, traveller, cricketer, lover of wine: Alec Waugh has
been all these in the course of a life which has brought him a host of
friends around the world. He is a warm person who knows a good friend
when he sees one and is revered by all those with whom there has been
mutual acceptance.
This book contains his memories of many famous writers and some figures
no longer so well remembered in the period between the wars.
The section which will, no doubt, command the most attention is that
devoted to the youth of his younger brother Evelyn. This throws
invaluable light on the early years of a great but difficult man and
reveals an insight which only one so close as a brother could have.
Alec Waugh, 1898-1981, was a British novelist born in London and
educated at Sherborne Public School, Dorset. Waugh s first novel, The
Loom of Youth
(1917), is a semi-autobiographical account of public school life that
caused some controversy at the time and led to his expulsion. Waugh was
the only boy ever to be expelled from The Old Shirburnian Society.
Despite setting this record, Waugh went on to become the successful
author of over 50 works, and lived in many exotic places throughout his
life which later became the settings for some of his texts. He was also
a noted wine connoisseur and campaigned to make the cocktail party a
regular feature of 1920s social life.
