R. C. Sherriff is remembered mainly for his plays, especially Journey's End (1929); despite the commercial success and critical acclaim enjoyed by his second novel, The Fortnight in September (1931), Sherriff's five works in the genre have been largely neglected since his death in 1975.

Born on 6 June 1896 at Kingston upon Thames to Herbert Hankin and Constance Winder Sherriff, Robert Cedric Sherriff graduated from Kingston Grammar School at seventeen and went to work as a clerk at the Sun Insurance Company in London, where his father was also employed. World War I began a few months later, and Sherriff served from 1914 to 1917 in the East Surrey Regiment. Severely wounded at Ypres in 1917, Sherriff, who had risen to the rank of captain, spent six months in a military hospital before returning to the insurance company as a claims adjuster. He devoted much of his free time to the rowing club in his...