Picturesque Prison

Jeffrey Heath teaches English at Victoria College, University of Toronto.

"Heath shows himself ... to be an accomplished biographer. He has no trouble demonstrating that Waugh's novels are reflective of Waugh's experiences. But his probe aims deeper than that. The path to the psyche, where he reveals the furious conflct raging constantly in Waugh, uncovers the physical and temperamental likenesses of the unforgettable fictional figures to those of the creator himself." Lovat Dickson, Globe and Mail. "[Heath] has done something many critics promise but rarely deliver. By moving back and forth between the documented facts of Waugh's life and a close reading of his fiction, Heath focuses on the process by which the creative imagination turns daily experience into art. The tact and insight with which he has done this have enabled him to demonstrate that Waugh, despite his poses as a dandyish wit in youth and a reactionary curmudgeon in middle age, was always a deliberate artist whose fiction deserves the kind of close attention we have come to expect in studies of 'serious' literature." National Review.