Published 1945 / Length 331 pages
During the Second World War, Charles Ryder, an army officer, is billeted at Brideshead Castle – but it is not his first visit to the stately home of Lord Marchmain (whose family name is Flyte). Through Ryder’s first-person narrative, Waugh transports his reader to Oxford University twenty years previously, where Charles is befriended by the eccentric but glamorous Lord Sebastian Flyte, the wayward youngest son of the aristocratic family. Always accompanied by his teddy bear, Aloysius, and with an exclusive group of friends, Lord Sebastian cuts a dazzling figure around Oxford. Charles is taken to the family’s seat at Brideshead Castle where, despite Sebastian’s protestations, he begins to forge life-changing relationships with the Flytes. The family are Roman Catholic, and their faith informs every aspect of their lives. Charles is destined to re-encounter the Flytes over the years in a series of formative events that give shape to his social and religious conscience. Waugh himself summed up Brideshead Revisited most succinctly when he wrote that the novel is concerned with the ‘operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters’.
‘First and last an enchanting story, Brideshead Revisited has a magic that is rare in current literature. It is a world in itself, and the reader lives in it, and is loath to leave it when the last page is turned.’ – Saturday Review
• The first part of the novel is titled ‘Et In Arcadia Ego’, a Latin phrase that can be translated as ‘I [Death] am even in Arcadia [paradise]’. In what ways do you think Waugh makes his reader aware of decay and mortality in the early stages of the novel?
• The exact nature of Charles and Sebastian’s relationship has been the subject of much critical scrutiny. Are they simply platonic friends, or does Waugh imply a physical relationship between them? In what ways does Charles’s relationship with Julia mimic and/or diverge from this?
• What do you think of Waugh’s treatment of Roman Catholicism and divine grace, particularly in the novel’s final chapter and its study of Lord Marchmain?
• Brideshead Revisited is a roman-à-clef: many of the characters are identifiably based on Waugh’s real-life acquaintances.
• Time magazine included Brideshead Revisited on its list of ‘All-Time 100 Novels’. Waugh himself referred to the work on several occasions as his ‘magnum opus’.
• Waugh’s knowledge of Oxford University stemmed from his own experience there as an undergraduate at Hertford College, where he graduated with a third-class degree in Modern History. When asked if he had competed in any sport for his college, he famously replied, ‘I drank for Hertford.’
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