Waugh's most serious novel, published in 1945. A memory of Oxford, aristocratic beauty, and Catholicism, told from the wreckage of WWII. Charles Ryder's love for Sebastian Flyte and Julia is also a love for a world that no longer exists. The prose is pure and melancholy. The novel argues, controversially, that grace is irresistible.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.