WAUGH, Evelyn [Daphne Fielding].
The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men At Arms; Officers and Gentlemen; Unconditional Surrender.
First Editions of Each Volume the Classic Sword of Honour Trilogy; Officers and Gentlemen warmly inscribed by Evelyn Waugh to Daphne Fielding
London: Chapman & Hall, 1952-1961.
$12,000.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-146294
* Custom Clamshell Boxes are hand made by the Harcourt Bindery upon request and take approximately 60 days to complete
First editions of each volume in the author's acclaimed Sword of Honour Trilogy. Octavo, 3 volumes, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper of Officers and Gentlemen, "For Darling Daphne, Beloved Bigamist, from Evelyn." The recipient, Daphne Fielding (1904–1997) was a British socialite and writer whose memoirs and biographical works offered a vivid portrait of aristocratic life in the early twentieth century. Born Daphne Vivian, daughter of the 4th Baron Vivian, she married Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath, and became Marchioness of Bath before their divorce in 1953. Fielding was closely connected to the "Bright Young Things"—a group of bohemian aristocrats and artists whose flamboyant lifestyles captured public imagination in interwar Britain—and maintained friendships with many prominent literary figures, including Evelyn Waugh. Waugh, who shared her interest in the idiosyncrasies of upper-class life, dedicated his 1957 novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold to Fielding and her best-known works included The Nearest Way Home (1970), a memoir of her unconventional upbringing, and The Duchess of Jermyn Street (1978), a biography of her mother-in-law, Daisy Fellowes. With wit, candor, and an insider’s perspective, Fielding documented a vanishing world of privilege, eccentricity, and decline within the British upper classes. Each volume is near fine to fine in a near fine dust jacket. Officers and Gentleman is price-clipped. From the library of Daphne Fielding. A wonderful association.
The Sword of Honour trilogy of novels about World War II, is largely based on the author's own experiences as an army officer and some critics ague the crowning achievement Waugh's career. Its central character is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war too much for him. "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). Waugh received the 1952 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Men at Arms. The trilogy is considered by many critics to be the finest novel series of the Second World War.
The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men At Arms; Officers and Gentlemen; Unconditional Surrender.
$12,000.00
In Stock