Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family

by Alexander Waugh (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $12.19

  When Arthur Waugh won the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1888, he broke with the family tradition of working in medicine, but created a new trade for the Waughs that continues to today: writing. His two sons, Alec and Evelyn, both followed in his profession and, like so many other sons, faced accusations of preference because of who their father was. Their sibling rivalry was formed by Arthur's clear favouritism towards Alec, but Evelyn emerged to become one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century. Evelyn's son Auberon also struggled to emerge from his father's shadow, and developed a career as one of Britain's best-loved and most original columnists. Now his son, Alexander, has taken up the baton. This is the story of four generations of a brilliant family, all of whom have written about their relationships with their fathers and sons. It is also a book that reveals much about the nature of how any family copes with its own rivalry.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.26

  The Waugh family has been writing books since the nineteenth century. Evelyn's father, brother and son were all writers and now his grandson has taken up the baton. Based on recollections of his father, Auberon, and on a mine of hitherto unseen documents relating to Evelyn and his close family, Alexander Waugh skilfully traces the threads of influence that have linked father to son across a century of conflict, turmoil and change.

  
  
  

  FATHERS AND SONS is much more than a family tale: it is a study of birth and death, of writers and writing, of conforming and rebelling. It is a frank and intimate memoir, a revealing history and a book about famous men.