1958.

A lengthy and typically hilarious letter from Evelyn Waugh to Nancy Mitford, discussing the recent death of Brian Howard, the Bruno Hat hoax, and Waugh's impending trip to Rhodesia to study Daphne Acton's collection of Ronald Knox papers. One side of Combe Florey House letter paper (single foolscap sheet, approx. 300 words in total), signed "Love from Evelyn". Folded twice, with two short tears to the page edge.

In the first part of the letter Waugh discusses the death of Brian Howard nine days before. Waugh admits that "he dazzled me rather 25 years ago... though I hadn't set eyes on him for 15 years or more". Waugh had met Howard at Oxford and both were part of the improvised club The Hypocrites. His acquaintance with Howard over this period would later inspire, in part, his creations of Miles Malpractice and Anthony Blanche. These fictionalisations perhaps explain Waugh's anxiety that "he would suddenly rush at me in some public place and hit me and there would be painful publicity 'Middle aged novelist assaulted in West End hotel.'"
Waugh then corrects David Pryce-Jones's obituary of Howard, which claimed that "poor Brian showed great promise in impersonating Bruno Hat". In fact, Howard painted the pictures for the hoax exhibition, while Tom Mitford "sat in the wheel-chair" impersonating the fictional German painter.
The second part of the letter concerns Waugh's trip to South Rhodesia to research further his work on Ronald Knox by making use of Daphne Acton's collection of Knox papers. Waugh informs Mitford that ahead of his trip he has "insured my life for £50,000... (only costs a tenner) I couldn't possibly earn that sum however hard I worked in the few years of activity left to me (not with taxes) so it will be much the best thing for my poor children if the aeroplane blows up." Waugh adds that such an occurrence is "the only chance they have of a liberal education", but admits he shan't pray for the tragedy, since fellow passengers "may not have been so foresighted."
Waugh goes on to predict that Rhodesia will be "a hideous and dull country. Not at all like lovely Abyssinia", and references the 'affaire du curé d'Uruffe' - the French trial of a curate who confessed to murdering his pregnant mistress, which was ongoing at the time of writing.
Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford were certainly the best correspondents of each other's lives, and this letter captures the tone and the banter of their friendship utterly. It was substantially published in Christopher Sykes's 1975 biography of Waugh and as such has relevant proof notations in pencil and ink, some portion of which were erased contemporarily. By the time Charlotte Mosley was compiling The Letters Of Nancy Mitford & Evelyn Waugh, published in 1996, "the original of the letter [had] disappeared" and she quoted directly from Sykes.

Stock ID: 37445

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