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Brideshead Revisited

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Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In 2008, it was adapted as a film.

The novel is divided into three parts, framed by a prologue and epilogue.

The prologue takes place during the final years of the Second World War. Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a country estate called Brideshead, which prompts his recollections of the rest of the story.

In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate reading history at a college very similar to Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the Marquess of Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Both Charles and Sebastian had matriculated at Oxford in the autumn of 1922, Charles doing so shortly before his 19th birthday. The following year, Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric friends, including the haughty aesthete and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial country house, Brideshead Castle, in Wiltshire, where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister, Lady Julia.

During the long summer holiday, Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together.

Sebastian's family is Catholic, which influences the Flytes' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always believed Christianity was "without substance or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her elder son, the Earl of Brideshead ("Bridey"), and by her younger daughter, Lady Cordelia.

The Flyte family becomes aware of Sebastian's heavy drinking, and attempts to stop him are detrimental. Lady Marchmain falls out with Charles and he leaves Brideshead for what he thinks is the last time.

Julia marries the rich but unsophisticated Canadian-born businessman and politician Rex Mottram. This marriage causes great sorrow to her mother because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Catholicism, turns out to be a divorcé with an ex-wife living in Canada. He and Julia subsequently marry without fanfare in the Savoy Chapel, an Anglican church where marriage between divorcés with one or more prior living spouses is permissible.

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