Books with author R. C. Sherriff

Set in the First World War, Journey's End concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed ...Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey's End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic.

From the writer of Journey's End, now a major motion picture starring Paul Bettany, Sam Claflin and Asa Butterfield.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

Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as 'useful [corrective] to the romantic conception of war', R.C. Sherriff's "Journey's End" is an unflinching vision of life in the trenches towards the end of the First World War, published in "Penguin Classics". Set in the First World War, "Journey's End" concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed. Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of "Journey's End" in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic. R.C. Sherriff (1896-1975) joined the army shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, serving as a captain in the East Surrey regiment. After the war, an interest in amateur theatricals led him to try his hand at writing. Following rejection by many theatre managements, "Journey's End" was given a single performance by the Incorporated Stage Society, in which Lawrence Olivier took the lead role. The play's enormous success enabled Sherriff to become a full-time writer, with plays such as "Badger's Green" (1930), "St Helena" (1935), and "The Long Sunset" (1955); though he is also remembered as a screenplay writer, for films such as "The Invisible Man" (1933), "Goodbye Mr Chips" (1933) and "The Dam Busters" (1955). If you enjoyed "Journey's End", you might like Robert Graves' "Goodbye to All That", available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Its unrelenting tension, and its regard for human decency in a vast world of human waste, are impressive and, even now, moving". (Clive Barnes).

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