Donat Gallagher Editor & Author

Born in New Zealand in 1929 and educated there, Donat Gallagher left for Australia in 1947 to pursue a career, later abandoned. In 1960 he began an English-Classics Honours BA at the University of Queensland and on completion in 1963 was offered a position at the new Townsville University College, later James Cook University. With various breaks, he has remained there and filled positions such as Dean of the Faculty of Arts. His interest in Evelyn Waugh began early with Decline and Fall and grew in 1963 when he completed a dissertation on Brideshead Revisited. Donat's curiosity about Waugh's religious and political-social beliefs led me to his journalism, then largely forgotten. The discovery of what had been written and an attempt to trace underlying themes and stylistics led to a doctoral thesis, two volumes of collected journalism and finally to this volume.