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Rossetti: His Life and Works

Name: Rossetti: His Life and Works
Author: Evelyn Waugh
ISBN: 9780141193519

by Evelyn Waugh

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Overview

This was Evelyn Waugh's first book, published when he was 25. It is an essential part of the Waughn canon, full of that vernal charm which animated his early travel books but which faded from the famous novels of his more savage maturity. Written when there was little general interest in the pre-Raphaelites, after an account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and somewhat mysterious life, and provocative pictures of his contemporaries and friends, Waugh concludes dryly that, from many points of view, Rossetti was nothing but a melancholy old fraud. Waughn confesses that nothing in Rossetti's life prepares us for the transcendent beauty of Beata Beatrix, The Beloved and a few other works. This is a biography as outstanding as the art it portrays.

"The youthful high spirits of the writing makes this a true cultural delight." (The New Statesman)

Synopsis

Part of the fabulous new hardback library of 24 Evelyn Waugh books, publishing in chronological order over the coming year. The books have an elegant new jacket and text design.

Rossetti was Evelyn Waugh's first published book. It details the life and works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Waugh naturally offers his own critique of this magnanimous Victorian pre-raphelite.

About the Author, Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Although he’s best known for Brideshead Revisited, his melancholy look back at the twilight of the English aristocracy, it's Evelyn Waugh’s genius for satire that truly distinguishes him. His acid wit and relentless drive to uncover hypocrisy and pretension make him a writer whose sweet way with words is equally matched by his powerful, almost bitter satires of modern culture.

Biography

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was born in Hampstead, England, into a family of publishers and writers. He was educated at Lancing and at Hertford College, Oxford, where he majored in modern history.

Waugh's first book, A Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was published in 1928. Soon afterward his first novel, Decline and Fall, appeared and his career was sensationally launched. In fifteen novels of cunning construction and lapidary eloquence, Time summarized later, Evelyn Waugh developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition and let wither all the dear things of the world. Apart from his novels, Waugh also wrote several acclaimed travel books, two additional biographies, and an autobiography, A Little Learning.

Author biography courtesy of Time Warner.