PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS : SWORD OF HONOUR PB B – EVELYN WAUGH-ANGUS CALDER-PROFESSOR MARTIN STANNARD-ANGUS CALDER

Evelyn Waugh s masterful depiction of World War II, with an introduction by Martin Stannard 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. Marvellous … one of the masterpieces of the century John Banville, Irish Times