Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel. Written during the war as he recovered from a parachuting accident, Waugh's (some say autobiographical) narrative is told by Charles Ryder, a world-weary soldier stationed at Brideshead, an imposing country house. Charles remembers his long relationship with the house's owners, the aristocratic and staunchly Catholic Marchmain family, which began more than 20 years previously when he befriended Lord Sebastian Flyte, the youngest son of Lady Marchmain, at Oxford. The kiss between Charles and Sebastian in Julian Jarrold's (terrible) 2008 film adaptation is a liberty he has taken, but Waugh's beautiful prose hints at far more between the two men, and his ultimate message is spelled out early in the novel: "to know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom".