Educated at Lancing College and Hertford College, Oxford, Waugh worked at various jobs including carpenter and schoolmaster until 1928, when he published a biography of Dante Rossetti and embarked on a writing career. That same year saw the publication of his very successful Decline and Fall. He converted to Catholicism in 1930 after the failure of his marriage. During the 1930s, Waugh had a number of successes both in novels and also travel works. He enlisted in the Royal Marines during the Second World War and was commissioned a captain. Following the war he used his experiences in many of his subsequent works. In 1945, he published his greatest commercial success, Brideshead Revisited, which was later televised. He attended the Nuremburg trials as a journalist, but left before they were concluded. Waugh became one of the greatest prose stylists of the 20th century. His many works include Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934), Ninety-Two Days (1934), Waugh in Abyssinia (1936), Robbery Under Law (1938), Put Out More Flags (1942), The Loved One (1948), Helena (1950), Love Among the Ruins (1953), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961).