Alexander Waugh

Alexander Evelyn Michael Waugh (born 1963) is an English writer, critic, and journalist. Among other books, he has written Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (2004), about five generations of his own family, and The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War (2008) about the Wittgenstein family. He is an advocate of the Oxfordian theory, which holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the real author of the works of William Shakespeare.

This article is about the English writer born in 1963. For his great-uncle, Alexander Raban Waugh (1898–1981), novelist, see Alec Waugh.

Life

Alexander is the eldest son of Auberon and Lady Teresa Waugh, and the brother of Daisy Waugh and the grandson of Evelyn Waugh. He was educated at Taunton School, the University of Manchester and the University of Surrey, where he gained degrees in Music. Alexander Waugh was the chief opera critic of The Mail on Sunday (1990–91) and of the Evening Standard (1991–1996). His books on music include Classical Music: A New Way of Listening (1995) and Opera: A New Way of Listening (1996).

Waugh's biography Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (2004), written at the suggestion of Sir Vidia Naipaul after his father died, is a portrait of the male relations across five generations in his own family.[1][2] Described as "breezily irreverent" by John Banville in The New York Review of Books,[3] it formed the basis of a BBC Four television documentary, presented by the author, which was broadcast in 2006.[4] He is the general editor of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh (43 volumes planned), a project which began in 2009 with the first four volumes appearing in 2017 published by the Oxford University Press.[5]

Waugh's biography of the Wittgenstein family (The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War) was published in 2008. Terry Eagleton in a review for The Guardian found it an "eminently readable, meticulously researched account of the Wittgenstein madhouse". Although he thought Waugh wrote less about Ludwig Wittgenstein than he would desire, he "certainly casts some light" on the philosopher's "extraordinary contradictions."[6] Philosopher Ray Monk in his review for Standpoint magazine commented that Waugh, in his account of a substantial portion of the Wittgenstein family fortune ending up with the Nazis, uses "much hitherto unknown documentation" and "Waugh's version is more authoritative and fuller than previous accounts." Monk writes that concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein gains the largest share of the text and much of the book is written from his viewpoint.[7]

His other books include Time: From Microseconds to Millennia; A Search for the Right Time (1999) and God (2002).[8][9] In Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family, Michael G. Brennan described Time as being "one of the most intriguing books produced by" any of his later family. "Ranging through religious, classical and renaissance scholarship, it blends past beliefs and theories, often in gently subversive ways, with more recent scientific thought."[10]

Oxfordian theory and Shakespeare

Waugh is an advocate of the Oxfordian theory, which contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the works of William Shakespeare. He discovered what he claims to be surreptitious allusions embedded in 16th- and 17th-century works revealing that the name William Shakespeare was a pseudonym used by Oxford to write the Shakespeare oeuvre.[11][12] Of one example which gained coverage in October 2013, Shakespearean scholar Professor Stanley Wells told The Sunday Times: "I’m mystified that an intelligent person like Alexander Waugh can see any significance in this kind of juggling with letters."[11][13]

Waugh's book, Shakespeare in Court (2014) takes the form of a fictional trial which draws the conclusion that Shakespeare was a front for others but, on this occasion, does not propose another candidate.[14]

He was elected chairman of the De Vere Society in spring 2016 for a three-year term.[15]

In late October 2017, The Guardian reported that Waugh believes the title and dedication of the William Aspley edition of Shakespeare's sonnets of 1609 hold encrypted evidence of the final resting place of the author: de Vere's grave in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.[16]

Personal life

Waugh met his wife, Eliza, while they were both students at Manchester University.[17] Eliza is the daughter of the journalist Alexander Chancellor.[18] The couple have three children.[17]

Bibliography

Books
  • Classical music : a new way of listening. London: De Agostini Editions. 1995.
    • U.S. publication: Classical music : a new way of listening. New York: Macmillan. 1995.
  • Opera: A New Way of Listening (De Agostini, 1996)
  • Time: From Microseconds to Millennia; A Search for the Right Time (Headline 1999; Carroll and Graf 2000)
  • God (Headline 2002; St Martin’s Press 2004)
  • Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (Headline 2004: Nan Talese 2007)
  • The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War (Doubleday, 2009)

Critical studies and reviews of Waugh's work
Fathers and sons

References
  1. Leith, Sam (1 September 2004). "Fathers, sons, feuds and myths". -The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  2. Kakutani, Michiko (19 June 2007). "A Literary Dynasty, Warts and All". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  3. Banville, John (28 June 2007). "The Family Pinfold". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 54, no. 11. pp. 20–21. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  4. Chancellor, Alexander (20 May 2006). "Love and Waughs". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  5. Sexton, David (14 September 2017). "The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh Vol 30: Personal Writings 1903–1921: Precocious Waughs by Alexander Waugh and Alan Bell – review". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  6. Eagleton, Terry (8 November 2008). "Palace of pain ..." The Guardian. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  7. Monk, Ray (21 August 2008). "The Wealth of the Wittgensteins". Standpoint. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  8. Elkins, Susan (11 April 2002). "God: the biography, by Alexander Waugh". The Independent. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  9. Armstrong, Karen (1 April 2002). "God is terrible with names". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  10. Brennan, Michael G. (2013). Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family. London: Bloomsbury. p. 147. ISBN 9781441194176.
  11. Waugh, Alexander (2 November 2013). "Shakespeare was a nom de plume—get over it". The Spectator. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  12. Waugh, Alexander (May 2014). "John Weever – Another Anti-Stratfordian" (PDF). De Vere Society Newsletter. pp. 12–15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
  13. Alberge, Dalya (13 October 2013). "Zounds! He's cracked the de Vere code". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 September 2019. (subscription required)
  14. Gore-Langton, Robert (29 December 2014). "The Campaign to Prove Shakespeare Didn't Exist". Newsweek. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  15. "DVS welcomes new Chairman: Alexander Waugh". De Vere Society. 1 May 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  16. Alberge, Dalya (28 October 2017). "I can prove that 'William Shakespeare' is buried in Westminster Abbey – scholar". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  17. Rustin, Susanna (13 September 2008). "All family life is tragic". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  18. Mount, Harry (29 January 2017). "Alexander Chancellor, a raffish editor more interested in cocktail parties than political ones". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
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