By analogy with the “novel in letters” genre, this publication could be called a “diary novel”. A novel in the center of which is a portrait of the artist in different years of his life... Evelyn Waugh begins to keep a diary very early - from elementary school, and continues it - sometimes with significant, sometimes many-year breaks - throughout his stormy life, almost until his death. So , who is looking at us from the portrait? At various stages of life, a schoolchild, student, writer, teacher, officer, saboteur, scientist, etc. and so on. In a word, we have before us a typical Englishman: not inclined to frankness, reserved, protecting his inner world from the outside with all his might... and at the same time ironic, inclined to view himself and the world from the standpoint of very “black” humor... This easily recognizable, typically English humor and constitutes the main advantage of the diaries offered to the reader. Translation: Alexander Livergant