From the introduction to the Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics version of The Razor's Edge by Anthony Curtis, in reference to "a stage-play that was neither performed nor published called The Road Uphill":
. . . [T]he young man, Joseph Sheridon, has had the same experience as Larry in The Razor's Edge. He is a former aviator who formed a close friendship with a fellow fighter-pilot. During a dogfight in the air, his friend risked his own life to beat off an attacker from Joe's aircraft, and as a result of a hit sustained during the encounter he dies on landing, in full sight of Joe. The spectacle of his dead friend gives the young man so unforgettable a trauma that it causes him on his release from the air force to give up all chances of a business career in order to spend every hour of the day reading and studying to try to make sense of what has happened to him. He becomes wholly possessed by the task of trying to discover, through the received wisdom of mankind, if human life really does have a meaning." (xi)
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