William Boot is a fictional journalist who is the protagonist in the 1938

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...

comic novel A comic novel is a novel-length work of humorous fiction. Many well-known authors have written comic novels, including P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Fielding, Mark Twain, and John Kennedy Toole. Comic novels are often defined by the author's literar ...

Scoop Scoop, Scoops or The scoop may refer to: Objects * Scoop (tool), a shovel-like tool, particularly one deep and curved, used in digging * Scoop (machine part), a component of machinery to carry things * Scoop stretcher, a device used for casualt ...

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Character

Boot is the young author of a regular column on country life for a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

newspaper named the ''Daily Beast''. His affected style is typified in the notorious sentence "Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole". After the ''Daily Beast's'' publisher mistakes him for the "real" war correspondent Henry Boot, William is sent abroad as a foreign correspondent to the fictional African state of Ishmaelia which is on the brink of a

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Although he is completely inept, he accidentally gets the 'scoop' of the title.

Inspiration for character

It has been suggested that Waugh based the character of William Boot on his own experiences and on the legendary journalist

Bill Deedes William Francis Deedes, Baron Deedes, (1 June 1913 – 17 August 2007) was a British Conservative politician, army officer and journalist. He was the first person in Britain to have been both a member of the Cabinet and the editor of a major da ...

; the two had reported together in 1936, trying to cover the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and Deedes arrived in

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aged 22 with almost 600 pounds of luggage. Deedes himself said he "spent part of my life brushing aside the charge," but admitted "that my inexperience and naivety as a reporter in Africa might have contributed a few bricks to the building of Boot." Barring the question of age, a more appropriate model for Boot may be William Beach Thomas who, according to

Peter Stothard Sir Peter Stothard (born 28 February 1951) is a British author, journalist and critic. From 1992 to 2002 he was editor of ''The Times'' and from 2002 to 2016 editor of ''The Times Literary Supplement'', the only journalist to have held both role ...

, "was a quietly successful countryside columnist and literary gent who became a calamitous Daily Mail war correspondent" in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Yet another suggested candidate as the model for Boot was the ''Daily Mails gardening correspondent for 50 years, Percy Izzard (1877-1968).

Television portrayals

* Michael Maloney played William Boot in a 1987 British television movie entitled ''

,'' produced by

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

. * Harry Worth played the character in a 1972

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Character

Inspiration for character

Television portrayals

Use as a pseudonym

External links

References