Penguin Modern Classics: The Revenge For Love

Percy Hardcaster, a communist fighter wounded in the Spanish Civil War, returns to London to acclaim and adoration. But is his hero’s welcome deserved? In this modernist classic, Wyndham Lewis brilliantly depicts a world in which everyone is hiding something – from Hardcaster himself to the failed artist Victor Stamp, reduced to turning out forgeries in order to earn a living.

In prose that is by turns humorous and tragic, ‘The Revenge For Love’ portrays a society in which deceit – including false propaganda and the smuggling of non-existent guns – is all-pervasive. Here everyone wears a mask, and loyalty, art and friendship are all shown to be nothing compared to brute force and the realities of the political game.