Acclaimed writers to speak at biggest ever Evelyn Waugh conference

Acclaimed writers Selina Hastings, William Boyd and Paula Byrne are set to speak at a major conference on the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh project taking place between 24-26 April.

The event will be held at the University’s conference centre and hotel, College Court and will see the trio of writers, all fans of Waugh, speaking to leading scholars from around the world about their own work on the author.

The conference is being held as part of the University’s involvement with the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh project - a 42-volume scholarly edition which seeks to publish every piece of writing or art work by Waugh.

Dr Barbara Cooke from the School of English, who has organised the conference, said: “We are delighted to be welcoming Waugh scholars from across the world to Leicester this week. It’s a mark of our project’s dynamism that it is turning up new Waugh materials all the time, with collectors and archivists coming forward to enrich our work. I’m looking forward to meeting many of them at the conference, which is the biggest ever organised on Evelyn Waugh.”

The conference will also feature a rare screening of The High Green Wall, a 1954 TV adaptation by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) of Waugh’s short story The Man Who Liked Dickens.

The conference includes talks and workshops on the challenges associated with editing large collections, and will examine how digital humanities technology can be employed to tackle them.