| Waugh in Abyssinia Contributor(s): Waugh, Evelyn (Author), Hamilton, John Maxwell (Introduction by) |
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ISBN: 0807132519 ISBN-13: 9780807132517 Publisher: LSU Press OUR PRICE: $22.46 Product Type: Paperback Published: May 2007 Annotation: This reissue of a largely forgotten book by Evelyn Waugh will be the first in our new series edited by John Maxwell Hamilton, From Our Own Correspondent. Waugh's hilarious novel, Scoop, is said to be the closest thing foreign correspondents have to a Bible. Along with generations of general readers, the correspondents swear by and laugh at the antics of reporters in Waugh's fictional Ishmaelia. Few readers, however, are as acquainted with this title. It is Waugh's memoir of his time as a London Daily Mail correspondent in Abyssinia, what is today Ethiopia, during the mid-1930's when Italy invaded the hapless country. Waugh's account, though often criticized for its endorsement of the Italian invasion, provides a fascinating short history of Mussolini's imperial strides. It also introduces Waugh's famous wit and the characters and follies that figure into his notorious satire. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Africa - General - History | Military - World War Ii |
| Dewey: 963.055 |
| LCCN: 2006036754 |
| Series: From Our Own Correpondent |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.45" W x 8.02" (0.68 lbs) 288 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - African |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's bestselling comedy of England's newspaper business of the 1930s is the closest thing foreign correspondents have to a bible -- they swear by it. But few readers are acquainted with Waugh's memoir of his stint as a London Daily Mail correspondent in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) during the Italian invasion in the 1930s. Waugh in Abyssinia is an entertaining account by a cantankerous and unenthusiastic war reporter that provides a fascinating short history of Mussolini's imperial adventure as well as a wickedly witty preview of the characters and follies that figure into Waugh's famous satire. In the forward, veteran foreign correspondent John Maxwell Hamilton explores in how Waugh ended up in Abyssinia, which real-life events were fictionalized in Scoop, and how this memoir fits into Waugh's overall literary career, which includes the classic Brideshead Revisited. As Hamilton explains, Waugh was the right man (a misfit), in the right place (a largely unknown country that lent itself to farcical imagination), at the right time (when the correspondents themselves were more interesting than the scraps of news they could get.) The result, Waugh in Abyssinia, is a memoir like no other. |