Series of fifty-one autograph and typed letters by Evelyn Gardner, Waugh's first wife, to Anthony Powell, the first letter (20 April 1928) dating from just before her marriage to Waugh ("...It was so very kind of you to send me the review of Evelyn's book [Decline and Fall] in the Manchester paper... There is quite a good notice in the British Weekly calling the book ʻa brilliantly critical, courageously independent study'... P.S. Henry Lamb is painting Evelyn..."), the following two (23 April and 22 May 1930) from soon after her elopement with John Heygate ("...I must say I was thrilled by your letter. I think it is most interesting that Evelyn's transmigration from the Literary to the Brewing Set should be marked by a bowler hat and a little sinister, I think. What sums of money did he make and what has the Fester been doing?.../ ...I wish you would write & tell me all about ʻVile Bodies' and everything..."); later letters written while living with, and growing estranged from, Heygate ("...Harpers have bought a story of mine and are paying me 20 gns. It is very bad, one long purple patch. I intend always to write bad things in future as I must make some money... Do you know when Evelyn is annulling our marriage? He hasnt answered my letter about it, perhaps having a secretary has gone to head..."); the bulk of the series written when married to Ronald Nightingale, and family apart dealing chiefly with the fall-out from Alec Waugh's My Brother Evelyn and Other Portraits (1967), Christopher Syke's biography (1975), Donald Davie's edition of the diaries (1976) and Mark Amory's impending edition of the letters (1980), remarking at the outset that "I find it rather a bore that I should be blamed completely for Evelyn's later character!", and clearly relying on Powell's advice and support throughout her ordeal, especially as he was still in touch with Heygate for whom she had abandoned Waugh ("...I have had a letter from John Heygate asking me whether I would answer some questions about Alec's book & the chapter on Evelyn. Apparently Christopher Sykes is writing a biography of Evelyn & will probably come & see John – plus tape recorder – to question him about the break-up of my marriage to Evelyn. I am really writing to ask you what John is like now. Is he reasonable? You can imagine how distressing all this is to me & how the last thing in the world I would want is to have this old scandal raked up again..."), among subjects touched upon being Heygate's own reactions ("...The enclosed from John... His questions seem to me too silly for words and what the ʻforgiveness' thing is goodness knows. I almost fear that he wants to get into the biography. Quite extraordinary..."), the reluctance of Sykes to hear her side of the story and the biased treatment of Waugh's parents ("...I don't know whether you have heard that Evelyn's diaries are coming out in the Observer in April... what worries me is that Christopher Sykes has not been in touch altho' he has offered to go & see John a second time & I would rather he heard about my marriage to Evelyn from me rather than from John who really knows nothing about it... Apparently the year of our marriage is missing. I suppose he destroyed it. Apparently too everything I suspected is true – the diaries after our marriage are like Society News. Quite extraordinary. Why were Evelyn & Alec ashamed of their parents – for that is what it amounts to? Alecs sickening remarks about my deigning to go to their little house in Golders Green. (Now worth at least £50,000 I should think) & Evelyn's social climbing. Mrs Waugh was a remarkable character – quite splendid – & as Bendy [her son the theatre critic Benedict Nightingale] says Arthur Waugh was a good critic..."), the annulment itself ("...at the time of the annulment when Evelyn took me out to lunch in order to brief me in exactly what I was to say to the board of priests at Westminster Cathedral. This was a very macabre occasion... I was to say that we had never intended to have children which was of course untrue. We had decided to have them when we were better off... I wonder why Mr Sykes didn't come to see me...") and the suicide of Heygate, with whom she had re-entered correspondence ("...I had no idea John had taken his life. It is dreadful..."); forty-one letters autograph, four typed and signed, six entirely typed, some 70 pages, usual creasing, 4to and 8vo, Dorset, Tunbridge, Tirol, Ticehurst and elsewhere, 1928-c.1975