At the outbreak of the Second World War, Koestler was living in the South of France working on Darkness at Noon.

[1] Koestler arrived in England in December 1940, without an entry permit, travelling with a Hungarian passport.

Although he was by then widely known as an anti-fascist he was imprisoned as an enemy alien while his case was being reviewed by the Home Office.

Over the following three months, while waiting for his call-up papers and army posting, he wrote Scum of the Earth.

I have confined myself to correcting only the most glaring Gallicisms, germanisms and grammatical errors – and to throwing out adjectives and similes at a set rate of one in five.Scum earned several positive reviews: “A memorable story, vivid, powerful and deeply searching” – The Times Literary Supplement “This is a book in a thousand, by far the best book to come out of the collapse of France” – The Guardian “Koestler’s personal history of France at War.