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''The Temple at Thatch'' was an unpublished novel by the British author
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
, his first adult attempt at full-length fiction. He began writing it in 1924 at the end of his final year as an undergraduate at
Hertford College, Oxford
Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...
, and continued to work on it intermittently in the following 12 months. After his friend
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton (5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in Ch ...
commented unfavourably on the draft in June 1925, Waugh burned the manuscript. In a fit of despondency from this and other personal disappointments he began a suicide attempt before experiencing what he termed "a sharp return to good sense".
In the absence of a manuscript or printed text, most information on the novel's subject comes from Waugh's diary entries and later reminiscences. The story was evidently semi-autobiographical, based on Waugh's Oxford experiences. The protagonist was an undergraduate and the work's main themes were madness and
black magic
Black magic, also known as dark magic, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 145 ...
. Some of the novel's ideas may have been incorporated into Waugh's first commercially published work of fiction, his 1925 short story "The Balance", which includes several references to a country house called "Thatch" and is partly structured as a film script, as apparently was the lost novel. "The Balance" contains characters, perhaps carried over from ''The Temple at Thatch'', who appear by name in Waugh's later fiction.
Acton's severe judgement did not deter Waugh from his intention to be a writer, but it affected his belief that he could succeed as a novelist. For a time he turned his attention away from fiction, but with the gradual recovery of his self-confidence he was able to complete his
first novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
, ''
Decline and Fall
''Decline and Fall'' is a novel by the English author Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled '' The Temple at Thatch'', was destroyed by Waugh while still in manuscript form. '' ...
'', which was published with great success in 1928.
Background
![Hertford college Old Quadrangle under the snow](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Hertford_college_Old_Quadrangle_under_the_snow.jpg)
Evelyn Waugh's literary pedigree was strong. His father, the publisher
Arthur Waugh (1866–1943), was a respected literary critic for ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
''; his elder brother
Alec
Alec or Aleck is a Scottish form of the given name Alex. It may be a diminutive of the name Alexander or a given name in its own right. Notable people with the name include:
People
* Alec Aalto (1942–2018), Finnish diplomat
*Alec Acton (1938 ...
(1899–1981) was a successful novelist whose first book ''
The Loom of Youth'' became a controversial best seller in 1917. Evelyn wrote his first extant story "The Curse of the Horse Race" in 1910, when he was seven years old. In the years before the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
he helped to edit and produce a handwritten publication called ''The Pistol Troop Magazine'', and also wrote poems. Later, as a schoolboy at
Lancing College
Lancing College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England. ...
, he wrote a parody of
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...
's style, entitled "The Twilight of Language". He also tried to write a novel, but soon gave this up to concentrate on a school-themed play, ''Conversion'', which was performed before the school in the summer of 1921.
At Hertford College, Oxford, where Waugh arrived in January 1922 to study history, he became part of a circle that included a number of future writers and critics of eminence—
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton (5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in Ch ...
,
Christopher Hollis,
Anthony Powell
Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English.
Powell' ...
and
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine '' Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote '' Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which comb ...
, among others.
He also formed close personal friendships with aristocratic and near-aristocratic contemporaries such as
Hugh Lygon
Hugh Patrick Lygon (2 November 190419 August 1936) was the second son of William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, and is often believed to be the inspiration for Lord Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's ''Brideshead Revisited''. He was a friend of Waugh's ...
and Alastair Graham, either of whom may have been models for
Sebastian Flyte
''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...
in Waugh's later novel ''
Brideshead Revisited
''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...
''. From such companions Waugh acquired the fascination with the aristocracy and country houses that would embellish much of his fiction. At Oxford Waugh did little work and dedicated himself largely to social pleasures: "The record of my life there is essentially a catalogue of friendships". However, he developed a reputation as a skilful graphic artist, and contributed articles, reviews and short stories to both the main university magazines, ''
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
'' and ''
Cherwell''.
One of the ''Isis'' stories, "Unacademic Exercise: A Nature Story", describes the performance of a magical ceremony by which an undergraduate is transformed by his fellows into a
werewolf
In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or ...
. Waugh's interest in the occult is further demonstrated by his involvement, in the summer of 1924, in an amateur film entitled ''666'', in which he certainly appeared and which he may have written.
He appears to have been in a state of some mental confusion or turmoil; the writer Simon Whitechapel cites a letter from Waugh to a friend, written at this time: "I have been living very intensely the last three weeks. For the past fortnight I have been nearly insane. I am a little saner now."
However, most scholars take this as a referring to Waugh's
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
rather than
black magic
Black magic, also known as dark magic, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 145 ...
.
Composition
The earliest record of Waugh's intention to attempt a novel appears in a letter dated May 1924, to his schoolfriend
Dudley Carew. Waugh writes: "Quite soon I am going to write a little book. It is going to be called ''The Temple at Thatch'' and will be all about magic and madness". This writing project may have been a reaction to Waugh's immediate circumstances; he was in the last weeks of his Oxford career, contemplating failure in his examinations and irritated by the fact that most of his contemporaries appeared to be on the verge of brilliant careers. On 22 June 1924 he spent time working out the plot, a continuation of the supernatural theme explored in "Unacademic Exercise". The basic premise was an undergraduate inheriting a country house of which nothing was left except an 18th-century
folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.
Eighteenth-cent ...
, where he set up house and practised black magic.
Waugh's diary indicates that he began writing the story on 21 July, when he completed a dozen pages of the first chapter; he thought it was "quite good". He appears to have done no more work on the project until early September, when he confides to his diary that it is "in serious danger of becoming dull", and expresses doubts that it will ever be finished. However, Waugh apparently found fresh inspiration after reading ''A Cypress Grove'', an essay by the 17th-century Scots poet
William Drummond of Hawthornden
William Drummond (13 December 15854 December 1649), called "of Hawthornden", was a Scottish poet.
Life
Drummond was born at Hawthornden Castle, Midlothian, to John Drummond, the first laird of Hawthornden, and Susannah Fowler, sister of the ...
, and considered retitling his story ''The Fabulous Paladins'' after a passage in the essay.
The autumn of 1924 was spent largely in the pursuit of pleasure until, shortly before Christmas, the pressing need to earn money led Waugh to apply for teaching jobs in private schools. His diary entry for 17 December 1924 records: "Still writing out letters in praise of myself to obscure private schools, and still attempting to rewrite ''The Temple''". He eventually secured a job as assistant master at Arnold House Preparatory School in
Denbighshire
Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...
, North Wales, at a salary of £160 a year, and left London on 22 January to take up his post, carrying with him the manuscript of ''The Temple''.
During his first term at Arnold House Waugh found few opportunities to continue his writing. He was tired by the end of the day, his interest in ''The Temple'' flagged, and from time to time his attention wandered to other subjects; he contemplated a book on
Silenus
In Greek mythology, Silenus (; grc, Σειληνός, Seilēnós, ) was a companion and tutor to the wine Greek god, god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue (''thiasos''), and sometimes considerably older, ...
, but he admitted that it "may or may not ... be written". After the Easter holidays he felt more positively about ''The Temple'': "I am making the first chapter a cinema film, and have been writing furiously ever since. I honestly think that it is going to be rather good". He sometimes worked on the book during classes, telling any boys who dared to ask what he was doing that he was writing a history of the Eskimos. By June he felt confident enough to send the first few chapters to his Oxford friend Harold Acton, "asking for criticism and hoping for praise".
[Waugh (''A Little Learning''), pp. 228–30] Earlier that year Waugh had commented warmly on Acton's book of poems, ''An Indian Ass'', "which brought back memories of a life
t Oxfordinfinitely remote".
Rejection
While waiting for Acton's reply, Waugh heard that his brother Alec had arranged a job for him based in
Pisa
Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...
, Italy, as secretary to the Scottish writer
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (25 September 1889 – 28 February 1930) was a Scottish people, Scottish writer and translator, most famous for his English translation of most of Marcel Proust's , which he published under the Shakespearean tit ...
who was working on the first English translation of
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
's
novel sequence
A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their pub ...
''
À la recherche du temps perdu
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
''. Waugh promptly resigned his position at Arnold House, in anticipation of "a year abroad drinking Chianti under olive trees." Then came Acton's "polite but chilling" response to ''The Temple at Thatch''. This letter has not survived; its wording was recalled by Waugh 40 years later, in his biography ''A Little Learning''.
Acton wrote that the story was "too English for my exotic taste ... too much nid-nodding over port."
[Stannard (1993), p. 112] He recommended, facetiously, that the book be printed "in a few elegant copies for the friends who love you", and gave a list of the least elegant of their mutual acquaintances.
Many years later Acton wrote of the story: "It was an airy Firbankian trifle, totally unworthy of Evelyn, and I brutally told him so. It was a misfired ''jeu d'esprit''.
Waugh did not query his friend's judgement, but took his manuscript to the school's furnaces and unceremoniously burnt it.
Immediately afterwards he received the news that the job with Scott Moncrieff had fallen through. The double blow affected Waugh severely; he wrote in his diary in July: "The phrase 'the end of the tether' besets me with unshakeable persistence". In his biography Waugh writes: "I went down alone to the beach with my thoughts full of death. I took off my clothes and began swimming out to sea. Did I really intend to drown myself? That was certainly in my mind".
He left a note with his clothes, a quotation from
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
about the sea washing away all human ills. A short way out, after being stung by
jellyfish
Jellyfish and sea jellies are the informal common names given to the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella- ...
, he abandoned the attempt, turned round and swam back to the shore.
He did not, however, withdraw his resignation from the school, returning instead to London.
"The Balance"
Although he had destroyed his novel, Waugh still intended to be a writer, and in the late summer of 1925 completed a short story, called "The Balance". This became his first commercially published work when
Chapman and Hall
Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 ...
, where his father was managing director, included it in a short stories collection the following year. "The Balance" has no magical themes, but in other respects has clear references to ''The Temple at Thatch''. Both works have Oxford settings, and the short story is written in the film script format that Waugh devised for the first chapter of the novel.
[Byrne, p. 82]
There are several references in "The Balance" to a country house called "Thatch", though this is a fully functioning establishment in the manner of Brideshead rather than a ruined folly. Imogen Quest, the protagonist Adam's girlfriend, lives at Thatch; a watercolour of the house is displayed in Adam's undergraduate's rooms; the end of the story describes a house party at Thatch, during which the guests gossip maliciously about Adam. The names "Imogen Quest" and "Adam" were used by Waugh several years later in his novel ''
Vile Bodies
Vile may refer to:
Characters
* Vile (Mega Man X), a character from the Mega Man X game series
* Doctor Vile (Dr. Weil), a character from the Mega Man Zero game series
* V.I.L.E., a fictional villain group in the ''Carmen Sandiego'' franchise ...
'', leading to speculation as to whether these names, like that of the house, originated in ''The Temple at Thatch''.
Afterwards
Acton's dismissal of ''The Temple at Thatch'' had made Waugh nervous of his potential as an imaginative writer—he deferred to Acton's judgement on all literary issues—and he did not for the time being attempt to write another novel.
[Stannard (1993), p. 148] After "The Balance" he wrote a humorous article, "Noah, or the Future of Intoxication", which was first accepted and then rejected by the publishers Kegan Paul. However, a short story called "A House of Gentle Folks", was published in ''The New Decameron: The Fifth Day'', edited by Hugh Chesterman (Oxford: Basil. Blackwell, 1927). Thereafter, for a time, Waugh devoted himself to non-fictional work. An essay on the
Pre-Raphaelites was published in a limited edition by Waugh's friend Alastair Graham; this led to the production of a full-length book, ''Rossetti, His Life and Works'', published in 1928.
The desire to write fiction persisted, however, and in the autumn of 1927 Waugh began a comic novel which he entitled ''Picaresque: or the Making of an Englishman''.
The first pages were read to another friend, the future novelist
Anthony Powell
Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English.
Powell' ...
, who found them very amusing, and was surprised when Waugh told him, just before Christmas, that the manuscript had been burned. This was not in fact the case; Waugh had merely put the work aside. Early in 1928 he wrote to Harold Acton, asking whether or not he should finish it. On this occasion Acton was full of praise; Waugh resumed work, and completed the novel by April 1928. It was published later that year under a new title, ''Decline and Fall''.
According to his recent biographer
Paula Byrne
Paula Jayne Byrne, Lady Bate, (born 2 August 1967), is a British biographer, novelist, and literary critic.
Life
Byrne has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Liverpool, where she also studied for her MA, having completed a BA ...
, Waugh had "found his vocation as a writer, and over the next few years his career would rise spectacularly."
[Byrne, p. 103] ''The Temple of Thatch'' was quickly forgotten, and as Whitechapel points out, has failed to arouse much subsequent interest from scholars. Whitechapel, however, considers it a loss to literature, and adds: "Whether or not it matched the quality of his second novel, ''Decline and Fall'', if it were still extant it could not fail to be of interest to both scholars and general readers."
Notes and references
Notes
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple At Thatch, The
Novels by Evelyn Waugh
1925 British novels
Lost books
Unfinished novels
Unpublished novels