Sword of Honour

Description

Evelyn Waugh's masterful depiction of World War II, now in a wonderful hardback edition Waugh'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

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead, London, in 1903. He studied History at Hertford College, Oxford, but left without a degree. After a brief period as a teacher, he published his first book, a biography of the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1928. The same year also saw the publication of his first novel, Decline and Fall, which established his reputation. Further novels, including Vile Bodies (1930), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Brideshead Revisited (1945) were highly acclaimed. Waugh also wrote several travel books and short stories, and was a prolific journalist and book reviewer. Waugh died on Easter Sunday, 1966, at his home in Combe Florey, Somerset.

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