This volume is a comprehensive investigation into Forster's relationship to Modernism. It advances the argument that Forster's fiction embodies an important strand within modernism and in doing so makes the case for a new definition and interpretation of "modernism".

This study of the life and works of Evelyn Waugh traces the novelist's pursuit of his vocation and his long retreat from a world which he came to regard as a spiritual dungeon. Jeffrey Heath explores the paradoxical elements in Waugh's career: his quest for a refuge itself proved to be a prison and his devotion to the Augustan graces was accompanied by a lasting attraction to a Dionysiac age without restratint. The deep cleft in Waugh's nature imbued his art with the characteristic quirky complexity which has fascinated many readers, but it left him a choleric and melancholy man who never fully accepted his calling as a writer.

Part of the Critical Assessments of Writers in English series, the aim of which is to provide complete collections of previously published, formative critical assessments covering the whole work of individual writers. The titles should be useful to serious readers of literature, researchers and advanced students.

These essays, lectures, memoirs, and broadcasts are the thought-provoking products of Forsters engagement with the literary, political, and social events of his time.