Language English Originally published 1941 Publisher Cassell Country United Kingdom | Publication date 1941 Adaptations This Above All (1942) Genres War story, Romance novel | |
 | ||
Similar Random Harvest, The Flying Yorkshireman, You play the black and the r, The Keys of the Kingdom, Lassie Come‑Home | ||
This Above All (1941) is a novel by Eric Knight. It was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1942.
Contents
Title
The title of the novel is derived from a quote by Polonius in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 1, scene 3): "This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Plot
Spending leave together on the South Coast during the Battle of Britain and the beginning of the blitz, Clive and Prudence have an affair. Having survived Dunkirk, but having a crisis of conscience over what the war is being fought for and disgusted at the incompetence of the ruling elite, Clive decides not to return to the Army and to go absent without leave.
Characters
Adaptations
The novel has been adapted to a movie of the same name in 1942 directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine. It won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White.