Children of the Sun

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Prologue: A Visit to La Pietra

1: Children of the Sun

Definitions and Perspectives

Dandyism in the 19th Century

The Commedia Dell’arte and the Ballet

2: England in 1918

The Men of Action

Fathers and Sons

Uncles for Rogues

The Men of Feeling

The Undermining of the Fathers

Uncles for Dandies

The Defiance of the Fathers

3: The New Dandies Arrive

4: 1918–1922: Eton

Brian and Harold and Their School

Other Etonians

Raising the Banner of Art

5: 1922–1925: Oxford

Brian and Harold at Oxford

The Larger Scene

New Friends

Other Undergraduates

The Dandies’ Rivals and Enemies

6: 1925–1932: London

Brian and Harold in London

New Friends and Allies

Waugh and British Dandyism

Enemies and Rivals

Brian’s and Harold’s Careers

7: 1932–1939: Chinese Philosophy and German Politics

Brian and Harold in the ’30s

Men of the ’30s

Auden and Company

Old Friends

Aesthetes and Anti-Aesthetes

8: 1939–1945: The War

Harold and the Patriots

Brian and the Traitors

The Manhattan Project

Waugh and Old Friends

Orwell and Old Enemies

9: 1945–1951: Exile and the Decay of Hope

The National Trauma

Harold Acton and the Right

Brian Howard and the Left

Guy Burgess and Politics

The Manhattan Project

Aesthetes and Anti-Aesthetes

10: 1951–1957: Aging and Suicide

Acton and Howard and England

Waugh and the Others

New Voices

Trouble in Institutions

Aesthetes and Anti-Aesthetes

11: Confessions and Conclusions

The Critic’s Conversation with Himself

The Second Conversation

The Third Conversation

Appendices

A: A Dramatis Personae

B: Children of the Sun: A Short History of the Concept

Bibliography

Notes

Permissions

Index