Sword of Honour

Evelyn Waugh's masterful depiction of World War II, now in a wonderful hardback editionWaugh's own unhappy experience of being a soldier is superbly re-enacted in this story of Guy Crouchback, a Catholic and a gentleman, commissioned into the Royal Corps of Halberdiers during the war years 1939-45. High comedy - in the company of Brigadier Ritchie-Hook or the denizens of Bellamy's Club - is only part of the shambles of Crouchback's war. When action comes in Crete and in Yugoslavia, he discovers not heroism, but humanity.

Sword of Honor now clearly emerges as Mr. Waugh's main achievement to date, and the one piece of English fiction about World War II which is certain to survive.--Times Literary Supplement
Sword of Honour was the climax of Waugh's career as a novelist . . . Here in his final work there run together the two styles, of mischief and gravity, that can be noted in his writing from the beginning . . . He may justifiably have thought of it as crowning his work.--Frank Kermode
[Men at Arms is] a highly entertaining novel....Waugh's sharp wit and sure touch of satire are always at work.--Edward Weeks, Atlantic Monthly
[Officers and Gentlemen is] deft and amusing, sober and appalling. And it offers, incidentally, one of the most graceful salutes of many seasons to the flexibility of the English language.--New York Times

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

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