William Boot is a fictional journalist who is the protagonist in the 1938Evelyn Waughcomic novelScoop.
Boot is the young author of a regular column on country life for aLondon newspaper named theDaily Beast. His affected style is typified in the notorious sentence "Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole". After theDaily Beast's publisher mistakes him for the "real" war correspondent John Boot, William is sent abroad as aforeign correspondent to the fictional African state of Ishmaelia which is on the brink of acivil war. Although he is completely inept, he accidentally gets the 'scoop' of the title.
It has been suggested that Waugh based the character of William Boot on his own experiences and on the journalistBill Deedes; the two had reported together in 1936, trying to cover theSecond Italo-Abyssinian War and Deedes arrived inAddis Ababa aged 22 with almost 600 pounds of luggage.[1] 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."[2]
Barring the question of age, a more appropriate model for Boot may beWilliam Beach Thomas who, according toPeter Stothard, "was a quietly successful countryside columnist and literary gent who became a calamitousDaily Mail war correspondent" in theFirst World War.[3]
Yet another suggested candidate as the model for Boot was theDaily Mail's gardening correspondent for 50 years,Percy Izzard (1877–1968).[4]
Tom Stoppard has sometimes gone by the pseudonym William Boot.[5]
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