Good Used. Exhaustively Researched Biography That Her Subject"s Reputation Rests On Two Premises--that He Was One Of The Great Prose Stylists Of The 20th Century, And That As A Man He Was A Monster. ... Waugh (1903-1966) Was A Bullying, Choleric Man Who Frequently Drank Himself Into Oblivion, But Whose Wildly Satiric Humor Endeared Him To The Smart Set At Oxford And Later In London And Became The Basis Of The Series Of Brilliant Novels, Written In The ൜s And ൦s, Portraying That World. He Was An Unapologetic Snob Who Genuinely Believed That Britain"s Landed Gentry Were A Superior Race; Who Despised Children (including Most Of His Own), The Lower Classes, Foreigners And Modern Life In General; And Who Was A Passionate Convert To The Reactionary Extremes Of Roman Catholicism. ... The Entertainment Value Of Waugh"s Highly Eccentric Life, As Of Much Of His Work, Is High,