This is the first paperback edition of Waugh's great trilogy of the second World War, comprising Officers and Gentle- men, Men at Arms and Unconditional Surrender. Waugh's war is a characteristic combination of low tragedy and high farce. There is not much fighting, and what there is of it is usually ineffective. The protagonist, the chivalric but hapless Guy Crouchback, sees the war as the final apocalyptic battle against barbarism, but the world as he knows it is coming to an end, to be taken over by the likes of Trimmer, the spivvish opportunist who for Waugh is the quintessential representative of the "lower orders". But you do not have to agree with Waugh's social or philosophical views to savour this marvellous work, one of the masterpieces of the century.