A bookplate for Auberon Waugh: this ex libris is by the wood-engraver Richard Shirley Smith and is a beautiful piece of refined and melancholic classicism. It reminds me of Rex Whistler’s 1933 plate for Adelaide Livingstone and Meredith Frampton’s 1932 Still Life (which is the front cover of my book ‘The Mythic Method: Classicism in British Art 1920-1950’). Auberon was the eldest son of the novelist and right-wing Catholic, Evelyn Waugh. He was educated at Downside, turned down a scholarship to Oxford, and went into the Royal Horse Guards. He served in Cyprus, and was invalided out after an accident which permanently damaged his lungs. He wrote five novels, but it was as a writer on the Spectator in the 1960s, in his 'Diary' in Private Eye (1972-86), and his column in the Daily Telegraph, that he established a reputation for verbal caricature that was fantastical, anti-modernist and politically eccentric. (He said: “You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.”) He was also a writer on wine and chess. He was the founder of the Literary Review, and its editor-in-chief when he died. Here’s his youthful portrait by the wonderful ‘Madame Yevonde’ and his elder statesmen portrait by Snowdon, as well as some fun shots of his time at Private Eye. This 1979 woof-engraving is part of my ex libri collection, but there is also a copy in the collection of @britishmuseum #exlibris #auberonwaugh #bookplate #richardshirleysmith #bookstagram # (at Brighton and Hove) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMCBIijlMyE/?igshid=4qhevwpwxfsb
