Scoop

First published in 1938, this comic novel sends William Boot, a quiet nature columnist on a London newspaper, to the East African state of Ishmaelia in place of a novelist relative whose name the proprietors have confused with his. Foreign correspondents invent battles, bribe telegraph clerks, and compete for a scoop while the actual politics of a small war remain almost invisible to them. Boot's rural family, the lords of the Beast, and the veteran knaves of the press pack supply the satire. The book is a farce about newspapers, not a report on any real African campaign.

Bound in red buckram with gilt cover design and spine titling. Page tops stained grey. Fawn slipcase. Pale grey endpapers.