A Handful of Mischief: New Essays on Evelyn Waugh is a collection of essays based on presentations at the Evelyn Waugh Centenary Conference at Hertford College, Oxford, in 2003. There are twelve different essays by authors from various countries, including Australia, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The essays cover a wide range of material, from Waughs early novel Black Mischief (1932) to his last travel book, A Tourist in Africa (1960). In addition to essays on well-known novels such as Scoop (1938), Brideshead Revisited (1945), and Helena (1950), the collection includes papers on Waughs library, his changing conception of Oxford, his writing about religious conversion, and his role in the British evacuation of Crete in 1941. The authors approach Waugh and his work in various ways, and innovative essays explore sovereignty, post-colonialism, and adaptation for radio.
Donat Gallagher teaches in the English Department of James Cook University in North Queensland. Ann Pasternak Slater is the Eardley-Wilmot Fellow in English at St Annes College, Oxford. John Howard Wilson is associate professor of English at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.
1 Acknowledgements
2 Abbreviations
3 Introduction
Chapter 4 1. Evelyn Waugh, Bookman
Chapter 5 2. A Walking Tour of Evelyn Waughs Oxford
Chapter 6 3. "A Later Developement": Evelyn Waugh and Conversion
Chapter 7 4."That Glittering, Intangible Western Culture": "Civilizing" Missions and the Crisis of Tradition in Evelyn Waughs Black Mischief
Chapter 8 5. Sovereign Power in Evelyn Waughs Edmund Campion and Helena
Chapter 9 6. Waffle Scramble: Waughs Art in Scoop
Chapter 10 7. Violence, Duplicity, and Frequent Malversation:Robbery under Law and Evelyn Waughs Political Critique
Chapter 11 8. Homosexuality in Brideshead Revisited:"Something quite remote from anything the [builder] intended"
Chapter 12 9. The Worlds Anachronism: The Timelessness of the Secular in Evelyn Waughs Helena
Chapter 13 10. Guy Crouchbacks Disillusion: Crete, Beevor, and the Soviet Alliance in Sword of Honor
Chapter 14 11. The BBC Brideshead, 1956, or Whatever Happened to Celia, Sex, and Syphilis?
Chapter 15 12. Eyes Reopened:A Tourist in Africa
16 Notes on Contributors
17 Index
Pasternak Slater usefully explores the many ways reversal can play out, and relates the literary procedure to Waughs own real-life experiences in Abyssinia. — Evelyn Waugh Studies
