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 ''Decli ...

comic novel '' Scoop.''

Character

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

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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 John 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 is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, 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.J ...

. 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; the two had reported together in 1936, trying to cover the

Second Italo-Abyssinian War The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Ita ...

and Deedes arrived in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

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

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. 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 '' Scoop,'' produced by LWT. * Harry Worth played the character in a 1972

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television series, which was an adaptation of the novel scripted by Barry Took.

Use as a pseudonym

Tom Stoppard has sometimes gone by the pseudonym William Boot.

External links

Guardian analysis

References

Evelyn Waugh characters Fictional reporters and correspondents {{novel-char-stub