Reading Order
Brideshead Revisited Reading Order
Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (1945) is a standalone novel — there is no series and no sequel. Charles Ryder, an army officer during the Second World War, revisits the country house Brideshead and recalls his friendship with the aristocratic Flyte family — Sebastian and Julia — and the slow working of divine grace through their lives. One of the most debated works of twentieth-century English fiction, celebrated for its elegiac prose and criticized for its Catholic apologetics.
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Brideshead Revisited
Complete Brideshead Revisited Book List
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Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh·1945·Standalone novel — Charles Ryder and the Flyte family; approximately 350 pages; Waugh revised the novel significantly in 1960, toning down some of the nostalgia and the wartime setting; most editions now print the 1960 revision, which Waugh considered the definitive text - Buy
Decline and Fall
OptionalEvelyn Waugh·1928·Waugh's first novel — Paul Pennyfeather's absurd adventures after being expelled from Oxford; very funny and far more comic than Brideshead Revisited; the best introduction to Waugh's satirical mode and a good companion if Brideshead's elegiac tone felt too heavy - Buy
Scoop
OptionalEvelyn Waugh·1938·Boot the country columnist accidentally sent to cover a war in Africa — Waugh's purest comic novel and the funniest satire of journalism ever written; completely different in tone from Brideshead Revisited but shows the range of what Waugh could do
Brideshead Revisited — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Brideshead Revisited a Catholic novel?
Brideshead Revisited is explicitly and avowedly a Catholic novel — Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930, and the novel is, at its theological core, about the working of divine grace in the lives of a Catholic aristocratic family. The characters who nominally reject their faith — Sebastian through alcoholism, Julia through adultery — cannot finally escape it; the novel's plot turns on the return of both to a Catholicism they had seemed to have left. Readers who find this theology credible tend to find Brideshead moving and profound; readers who do not tend to find it sentimental. Waugh himself later said he was not entirely happy with the novel's 'rhetorical and ornamental language.'
Is Brideshead Revisited autobiographical?
Brideshead Revisited is not directly autobiographical, but it draws on real experiences. Waugh knew several Catholic aristocratic families in the 1920s and 1930s; he had friendships at Oxford that had the quality of Charles and Sebastian's, and he was a guest at English country houses of the kind Brideshead represents. The elegiac tone reflects the loss Waugh felt about this world — he believed that the English aristocracy and its houses were being destroyed by the war and its aftermath, and Brideshead Revisited is partly an act of preservation through fiction.
What is Brideshead Revisited's reputation today?
Brideshead Revisited is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished English prose styles of the twentieth century and as a significant work of Catholic literature. It is also significantly criticized: for its sentimentality about the English aristocracy, for the awkwardness of its central religious argument, and for what some readers find an unconvincing portrayal of the specific appeal of Catholic aristocratic life. The 1981 Granada television adaptation, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, is one of the most celebrated adaptations of a British novel ever made and has substantially shaped the novel's continued reputation.
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