When Put out More Flags was published in March 1942, Alan Pryce-Jones reviewed it in the New Statesman, praising the writer's 'dead-accurate' social sense and his vituperative use of 'the unpopular weapons of economy and proportion', and yet concluding that the book and its author were 'fundamentally without humour'. A surprising charge: but, on reflection, surprisingly accurate. Waugh, in his black style, had no more humour than P.G. Wodehouse in his rosy style. Waugh deeply admired Wodehouse, and read and re-read him all his working life.

LRB 20 October 1994 | PDF Download