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Alexander Waugh

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

Alexander Evelyn Michael Waugh (30 December 1963 – 22 July 2024) was an English writer, critic, and journalist. Among other books, he wrote 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 was 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.

Alexander Waugh
BornAlexander Evelyn Michael Waugh
(1963-12-30)30 December 1963
London, England
Died22 July 2024(2024-07-22) (aged 60)
Milverton, Somerset, England
OccupationWriter
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
Spouse
Eliza Chancellor
​
(m. 1990)​
Children3
Parents
Relatives

Early life

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Born in Belgravia, London on 30 December 1963, Alexander was the eldest son of Auberon and Lady Teresa Waugh, and the brother of Daisy Waugh and the grandson of Evelyn Waugh.[1][2][3] He was educated at Taunton School and the University of Manchester.[2]

Career

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Waugh was the opera critic of The Mail on Sunday and then the Evening Standard in the 1990s.[4] His books on music include Classical Music: A New Way of Listening (1995)[5] and Opera: A New Way of Listening (1996).[6]

Waugh's biography Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (2004),[7] 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.[8][9] Described as "breezily irreverent" by John Banville in The New York Review of Books,[10] it formed the basis of a BBC Four television documentary, presented by the author, which was broadcast in 2006.[11] He was 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.[12]

Waugh's biography of the Wittgenstein family (The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War[13]) 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."[14] 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" and he wrote that concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein holds the largest share of the text and much of the book is written from his viewpoint.[15]

His other books include Time: From Microseconds to Millennia; A Search for the Right Time (1999)[16] and God (2002).[17][18][19] 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."[20]

Oxfordian theory and Shakespeare

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Waugh was 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 claimed 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.[21][22] 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."[21][23]

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.[24]

He was elected chairman of the De Vere Society in spring 2016 for a three-year term.[25]

In late October 2017, The Guardian reported that Waugh believed 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.[26]

Personal life

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Waugh met his wife, Eliza Chancellor, while they were both students at Manchester University.[27] Eliza is the daughter of the journalist Alexander Chancellor.[28] The couple married in 1990 and had three children.[3][27]

Waugh was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023. He died at his home in Milverton, Somerset, on 22 July 2024, at the age of 60.[1][2][3]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Classical music: a new way of listening. London: De Agostini Editions. 1995.
  • Opera: A New Way of Listening (De Agostini, 1996), ISBN 978-1-899883-71-4, OL 43495840M.
  • Time: From Microseconds to Millennia; A Search for the Right Time (Headline 1999; Carroll and Graf 2000), ISBN 978-0-7472-2178-4, OL 6807783M
  • God (Headline 2002; St Martin's Press 2004), ISBN 978-1-4668-7251-6, OL 37409388M
  • Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (Headline 2004: Nan Talese 2007), ISBN 9780755312542, OL 7993076M.
  • The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War (Doubleday, 2009), ISBN 978-0-307-27872-2, OL 24088914M.
  • Shahan, John M.; Waugh, Alexander (2013). Shakespeare Beyond Doubt?: Exposing an Industry in Denial. Tamarac, Fla: Shakespeare Authorship Coalition. ISBN 978-1-62550-033-5. OL 25957325M.

Critical studies and reviews of Waugh's work

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Fathers and sons

References

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  1. ^ a b "Alexander Waugh obituary: mischievous grandson of Evelyn Waugh". The Times. 27 July 2024.
  2. ^ a b c "Alexander Waugh, author of an acclaimed study, Fathers and Sons, and Shakespeare sceptic – obituary". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. 23 July 2024. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 23 July 2024. An entertaining debater, with a hatred of pomposity, he proved a doughty opponent of Stratfordian scholars and led the De Vere Society.
  3. ^ a b c Risen, Clay (3 August 2024). "Alexander Waugh, Literary Scion of a Literary Dynasty, Dies at 60". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
  4. ^ Lebrecht, Norman (24 July 2023). "Opera critic dies, 60". slippedisc.com. Retrieved 27 July 2024. he was opera critic of the Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard in the 1990s...
  5. ^ Waugh, Alexander (1995). Classical Music: A New Way of Listening. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-860446-6. OL 781239M.
  6. ^ Waugh, Alexander (1996). Opera: A New Way of Listening. De Agostini Editions. ISBN 978-1-899883-71-4. OL 43495840M.
  7. ^ Waugh, Alexander (13 May 2008). Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family. National Geographic Books. ISBN 9780755312542. OL 7993076M.
  8. ^ Leith, Sam (1 September 2004). "Fathers, sons, feuds and myths". -The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  9. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (19 June 2007). "A Literary Dynasty, Warts and All". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Chancellor, Alexander (20 May 2006). "Love and Waughs". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ Waugh, Alexander (20 April 2010). The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-27872-2. OL 24088914M.
  14. ^ Eagleton, Terry (8 November 2008). "Palace of pain ..." The Guardian. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  15. ^ Monk, Ray (21 August 2008). "The Wealth of the Wittgensteins". Standpoint. Archived from the original (by web.archive.org, the Wayback Machine) on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  16. ^ Waugh, Alexander (1999). Time: From Micro-seconds to Millennia – a Search for the Right Time. Headline. ISBN 978-0-7472-2178-4. OL 6807783M.
  17. ^ Waugh, Alexander (3 June 2014). God. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4668-7251-6. OL 37409388M.
  18. ^ Elkins, Susan (11 April 2002). "God: the biography, by Alexander Waugh". The Independent. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  19. ^ Armstrong, Karen (1 April 2002). "God is terrible with names". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  20. ^ Brennan, Michael G. (2013). Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family. London: Bloomsbury. p. 147. ISBN 9781441194176.
  21. ^ a b Waugh, Alexander (2 November 2013). "Shakespeare was a nom de plume—get over it". The Spectator. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  22. ^ 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.
  23. ^ Alberge, Dalya (13 October 2013). "Zounds! He's cracked the de Vere code". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 September 2019. (subscription required)
  24. ^ Gore-Langton, Robert (29 December 2014). "The Campaign to Prove Shakespeare Didn't Exist". Newsweek. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  25. ^ "DVS welcomes new Chairman: Alexander Waugh". De Vere Society. 1 May 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2019.[permanent dead link]
  26. ^ Alberge, Dalya (28 October 2017). "I can prove that 'William Shakespeare' is buried in Westminster Abbey – scholar". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  27. ^ a b Rustin, Susanna (13 September 2008). "All family life is tragic". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  28. ^ 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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