WAUGH, Alexander Evelyn Michael (1963-2024)
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Alexander Waugh, author of an acclaimed study, Fathers and Sons, and Shakespeare sceptic – obituary
An entertaining debater, with a hatred of pomposity, he proved a doughty opponent of Stratfordian scholars and led the De Vere Society
Alexander Waugh, who has died aged 60, was the son of the columnist Auberon Waugh and grandson of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, and a widely accomplished and colourful character in his own right.
A composer, opera and literary critic, cartoonist, writer and sometime publisher, he was also keeper of what remained (after the sale of his grandfather’s library to the University of Texas in 1968) of the family archive, and general editor of a planned 43-volume edition of Evelyn Waugh’s complete works, published by Oxford University Press.
Alexander Waugh’s own books included Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (2004), a memoir which showed that he had inherited his full measure of the family’s eccentric and provocative wit, while also demonstrating the distinctiveness of his own voice and a literary talent that needed no help from his illustrious forebears…..
Alexander Evelyn Michael Waugh was born in London on December 30 1963, the second of four children of Auberon Waugh, known to family and friends as “Bron”, and his wife Lady Teresa, daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow and later a successful novelist and translator…….
He responded to his prostate cancer diagnosis a year ago with characteristic good humour and continued to tell jokes until two days before before he died.
Waugh married, in 1990, Eliza Chancellor, daughter of Bron’s great friend Alexander Chancellor, who survives him with their two daughters, Mary and Sally, and son, Bron.
Alexander Waugh, born December 30 1963, died July 22 2024
