Evelyn Waugh fell in love with three fellow male students at Oxford and had "fully fledged" homosexual affairs with them, according to a new biography of the novelist.

Author Paula Byrne said the affairs were cherished by Waugh, who she describes as "a great bisexual novelist", throughout his life and influenced his subsequent novels.

Waugh, who died in 1966, is regarded as the finest English writer of his generation. His work included Brideshead Revisited and Scoop.

Byrne, whose biography Mad World: Evelyn Waugh And The Secrets of Brideshead has just been published, named Waugh's lovers as Richard Pares, Alistair Graham and Hugh Lygon.

She said: "He had what he called an 'acute homosexual phase' when he was at Oxford, like most Oxford men in the Twenties.

It was not particularly unusual, particularly because women were not permitted to go to Oxford.

"It was very much perceived as acceptable as long as it was a phase you grew out of when you left Oxford. He used to joke to friends who hadn't had a gay phase that they had missed out on something. He said it was like fermenting wine, in order to prepare you for later on - for being married."

Byrne said letters Waugh wrote to his friend Nancy Mitford, the novelist and biographer, showed the intensity of his relationship with Richard Pares, his first gay lover.

She added that Waugh destroyed many of his Oxford diaries because they were "too inflammatory", but she unearthed in the British Library a nude photograph of Graham that he had sent to Waugh - though the library refused her permission to publish it in her book.

She said: "It's true that perhaps previous biographers have skirted round the issue - did he or didn't he? - but he absolutely, unquestionably did."

Waugh's second and third lovers, Graham and Lygon, formed the composite for the character of Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.

"That was an incredible, tense affair," Byrne said of Waugh's relationship with Graham.

"It clearly was very romantic, very full on. In one of the letters, Alistair sends a naked photograph of himself."

Graham became a diplomat and adopted a gay life overseas. Waugh disapproved and turned his back on Graham, who he believed was following a "seedy, expatriate life".

Lygon was one of two Oxford students who, like Sebastian Flyte, carried a teddy bear. The other was John Betjeman. But Lygon became an alcoholic and died young in a car accident in Germany in 1936.

Byrne believes she has revealed new information about the relationship between Pares and Waugh.

"People have been very careful talking about this phase, and hedging their bets. It's absolutely clear to me he did have a fully-fledged affair," she said.

"People were unsure about Hugh Lygon, about how the relationship went. I argue that they were lovers as well. Waugh is one of the great bisexual novelists.

"In Brideshead it's clear that they [Sebastian and Charles] are lovers. I felt that [Waugh's gay background] was an important part of the story."

Byrne suspects that the four students may have led overlapping sex lives. "They formed a club called The Hypocrites," she said. "In think there was a certain amount of sharing partners."

Byrne bases her claim that Waugh had a full relationship with Graham on diary entries and letters.

"When Evelyn Waugh comes to Barford [the Grahams' house] to meet Alistair Graham, he says they had this raucous night. He says, 'We did things that could never have been done while Mrs Graham was there'." In another entry, "he makes it very clear he has had an unrestrained time".

"It's clear that it's fully fledged. It's not fumbling," Byrne said. "It's not just about sex. I think he did fall in love with these three young men."

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