Book description
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.
Sword of Honour combines three volumes: Officers and
Gentlemen, Men at Arms and Unconditional Surrender,
which were originally published separately. Extensively revised by
Waugh, they were published as the one-volume Sword of Honour in
1965, in the form in which Waugh himself wished them to be read.
Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was born in London and educated at Oxford.
He quickly established a reputation with such social satirical novels as
DECLINE AND FALL, VILE BODIES and SCOOP. Waugh became a Catholic in
1930, and his later books display a more serious attitude, as seen in
the religious theme of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, a nostalgic evocation of
student days at Oxford. His diaries were published in 1976, and his
letters in 1980.
