Book description
Lord Swayne owned a well-protected castle on a particularly strategic
stretch of the English coast. A powerful Earl with estates nearby
coveted the castle and its surrounding land. Under the guise of
protecting King John from treachery, he declared his intention of
‘smashing the castle to the ground, hanging the garrison amidst its
ruins and wiping the pestilent Swaynes off the face of the earth’. Lord
Swayne had some advantages however, one of which was that he held the
Earl’s son, Gregory, captive.
This is a fascinating account of a medieval siege. It is also the story
of the growing friendship between two boys, Lord Swayne’s son Roger, and
his prisoner, Gregory.
‘The techniques and tragedies of medieval siege can seldom have been
described in such a clear-cut, practical way; this exciting
one-thing-after-another tale should be spread very widely among
history-lovers and also those who have scant interest in the past.’
Sunday Times
On his return from the First World War, R C Sherriff settled in
London, working as an insurance agent and writing plays in the evening.
Journey’s End
, inspired by Sherriff’s own experience of fighting, was his sixth play
but the first to be given a professional production. It was an
immediate, outstanding and phenomenal success. Thirty one separate
productions ran concurrently around the world and it was translated into
twenty six languages. Its success, however, was both a boon and a burden
- while it allowed him to give up the day job and devote himself
full-time to writing, it often overshadowed his later work or was used
as the yardstick against which it was measured unfavourably.
Fortunately for Sherriff he was not only a playwright but also a
novelist and a screenwriter. He wrote a best-selling novel, A
Fortnight In September
in 1931, and the screenplays for The Invisible Man
(1933), The Four Feathers
(1939) and classic films such as Goodbye Mr Chips
(1939), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and The Dambusters
(1955).
Although Sherriff was occupied as a playwright and screenwriter he did
not lose his urge to write novels and he followed the success of his
first novel with The Hopkins Manuscript
, Chedworth
, Another Year
and others. Now, while Journey’s End
continues to define Sherriff’s reputation, much of his work remains
ripe for rediscovery.
