Beschreibung:

Autograph letter signed, 'Evelyn Waugh', Piers Court, Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, Christmas Day, 1946, to Monsieur Danver, giving a lengthy account of his entire career up until 1946, Danver was the French translator of 'Vile Bodies': 'your translation... will breathe new life into a text which has become somewhat "dated" in the original', and answering questions about specific phrases and references in the novel, 'Blast was an avant garde publication of the time - Vorticist, - edited by Wyndham Lewis probably now forgotten by all but a dozen Englishmen', and regretting that he has no recent photograph but enclosing 'a reproduction of the portrait of me made in the year I wrote "Vile Bodies". Perhaps that could be used by the publishers, but they must make plain that I am now 17 years older, fatter & uglier', then giving a lengthy autobiographical account with his academic and other achievements, Modern History at Oxford, painting, cabinet making, all described parenthetically as 'without glory', before listing his publications including his first novel 'Decline and Fall' which 'was a success. Since then I have had no bitter struggles for recognition & have always been unduly praised by critics & unduly prosperous', mentioning his war service, 'varied, enjoyable but without distinction... finished the war among Tito's beastly partisans', his marriage and conversion to Catholicism, and, finally, 'Brideshead Revisited' on which he comments, 'This book is more serious than its predecessors, has annoyed most of the English critics and delighted illiterate Americans in a disconcerting way. But I like it', 4 pp., the final two pages written longitudinally down the centre spread, a little creased at edges, 4to, together with the aforementioned colour reproduction portrait after Lamb, inscribed and initialled by Waugh in ink to lower margin, 'Now aged 43 and much altered for the worse', 8vo, the two items preserved in a purpose-made cloth chemise and quarter morocco gilt book box (2)