The first book to tell the remarkable story of Oxford University's
hedonistic Hypocrites Club and its (in)famous members
Late one evening in March 1924, a tipsy young nun was seen trying to
slip into Balliol, an all-male Oxford college, just as the gates were
about to close for the night. The nun - subsequently unmasked as the son
of the college bursar - was returning after a fancy-dress party at a
notorious Oxford social club, one known to the university proctors for
its hedonistic ways, heavy drinking and wayward behavior. This was the
final straw; the club was shut down.
Described by one habitué as 'a kind of early twentieth-century Hell Fire
Club', the Hypocrites Club counted some of the brightest of the future
'Bright Young People' among its members. The one-time secretary was
Evelyn Waugh, who used ten of his fellow Hypocrites as inspiration for
his fictional characters - seven of them in Brideshead Revisited
alone.
The Hypocrites didn't just lend themselves to Waugh's fiction. Many went
on to prominence themselves, including Anthony Powell, Robert Byron,
Henry Green, Claud Cockburn and Tom Driberg. Hellfire is the first
full-length portrait of this scandalous club and its famous members, who
continued to be thorns in the Establishment's side - throughout war and
austerity - for the next five decades.
