The Last Enemy

Richard Hillary is one of the three “fatal Englishmen’ in Sebastian Faulks’s bestseller of the same name. The Last Enemy is the book he wrote about his experiences in the Second World War; now regarded as a classic, this edition, which includes an introduction by Sebastian Faulks, is published in Vintage for the first time.

The Last Enemy is the story of Richard Hillary, one of Sebastian Faulks’ three ‘fatal englishmen’. In this extraordinary account, the author details his experiences as a fighter pilot in the Second World War, in which he was shot down, leading to months in hospital as part of Archibald McIndoe’s ‘Guinea Pig Club’, undergoing pioneering plastic surgery to rebuild his face and hands.

The Last Enemy was first published in 1942, just seven months before Hilary’s untimely death in a second crash and has gone on to be hailed as one of the classic texts of World War Two.