Classics · LightWilliam Boot, who writes nature notes, is mistaken for a novelist and sent abroad as a foreign correspondent
Scoop
by Evelyn Waugh
A countryside nature columnist is sent to report on a foreign crisis by mistake
William Boot is a young man in genteel poverty who writes nature notes in the countryside. He is mistaken for a fashionable novelist with the same name and is sent to the fictional East African state of Ishmaelia as a foreign correspondent to report on a crisis there. His employer is the fearsome newspaper magnate Lord Copper. The story is set in the 1930s, mainly in Britain, including London, and draws on the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. Chapman & Hall published it in 1938.
More about this book
Who
William Boot, Lord Copper, Mr Salter and the journalist Jakes.
World
Britain, including London and a country house, and the fictional state of Ishmaelia, in the 1930s.
What makes it different
It draws on Waugh's own experience covering the Abyssinia crisis for the Daily Mail. The fictional paper inspired the name of The Daily Beast.
Feel
Brisk and satirical.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- ScoopWikipedia