Farewell to Eden

by Sebastian Faulks

First published 2026

Amazon

2.5(5)

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Philip Deval is sent to Palestine during the final years of the British Mandate. He arrives as a soldier already marked by the Normandy campaign and finds another conflict developing around him, with British authority weakening and Jewish and Arab political claims moving towards open war.

Back in Britain some years later, Philip becomes a teacher and develops a close relationship with music mistress Frances Darwood. The apparent calm of school and rural life cannot erase what he experienced overseas, and the novel follows the moral and emotional consequences of war into an unsettled post-war society.