I thought he announced in a diary entry or letter the exact point at which that decision was made (after a disappointing and unproductive weekend at Chagford), but if he did, I can't find it, and nor apparently did the editor, Sara Haslam. By then, he had decided to write it as a historical novel rather than a Saint's life. After writing in what was probably a serious style starting in May 1945, he put it aside and picked it up again at the end of the year. He began with the idea of writing a "Saint's life," following the formula of Roman Catholic hagiography, but, after doing a considerable amount of historical research, soon gave that up. The delay was due to Waugh's changing his mind and putting it aside. As explained in the volume's "History of the Text" section, he began the book in 1945, right after Brideshead Revisited was published, and it was issued 5 years later in 1950. Helena is noted both as Waugh's only historical novel as well as the one that took him the longest to write. The first (Vile Bodies) was published over three years ago, so it has been much awaited, and is worth the wait. This is the second novel to be issued in the OUP's ongoing Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh series. Helena: Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh, by Evelyn Waugh, Volume 11, Sara Haslam, ed., Oxford: OUP, 2020.
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