The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men At Arms; Officers and Gentlemen; Unconditional Surrender.

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.