Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited, was the story of a household, a family and a journey of religious faith - an elegy for a vanishing world and a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier. The Lygons of Madresfield were every bit as glamorous, eccentric and compelling as their fictional counterparts, the Marchmains. They lived in decadent, scandalous circles that attracted and captivated the young Waugh, but their lives would be darkened by disappointment, betrayal and tragedy. In this engrossing and innovative biography, Paula Byrne unlocks for the first time the extent to which Waugh's great novel transformed his own experiences, and captures Waugh's character through the friendships and loves that mattered most to him.
