In 1930, he converted to Roman Catholicism, and he spent much of his time between 19 traveling. While Waugh was writing his second novel, Vile Bodies (1930), he discovered that his wife was having an affair, so he filed for a divorce. This was a satire on the English upper classes and the English educational system. In 1928, his first novel, Decline and Fall, appeared. He enrolled at Heatherley's Art School, and in 1925 he became a secondary school teacher in Wales and then in Buckinghamshire, England. At Oxford, he wrote poetry and stories for undergraduate magazines but, because of financial difficulties, he left the university in 1924 without graduating. Waugh won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford, in 1922. He was enrolled at Lancing, a preparatory school, in 1917, where he wrote poetry, edited the school magazine, and was president of the debating society.

(an editor and publisher) and Catherine Charlotte (Raban) Waugh. Author BiographyĮvelyn Waugh was born on October 28, 1903, in Hampstead, London, England, the son of Arthur But it all means nothing to him, and he is happy to return to his country home, the isolated and dilapidated Boot Magna Hall, where his many eccentric relatives live. Helped by a series of lucky events, William gets several major scoops himself and returns to London as a world-renowned reporter. William gets some quick lessons in the devious way of journalists, who are always trying to outwit their colleagues and deliver a scoop. Geographically, at least, Ishmaelia is identical with Abyssinia.

Lord Copper, the arrogant and ignorant owner of the Daily Beast, sends out by mistake a naïve writer of nature columns, William Boot, to cover the war in the fictional East African country of Ishmaelia. The plot rests on some comic twists of fortune. The result was a satirical, farcical novel that takes lighthearted but deadly aim at the newspaper industry and the journalistic profession.

Waugh admitted that he had no aptitude for war reporting, but he did observe closely the activities of his fellow journalists. It is based on Waugh's stint as a war correspondent for the London Daily Mail in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1935, during which he covered the war between Abyssinia and Italy. Evelyn Waugh's Scoop (London, 1938) is a satire on journalism.

William boot scoop