“It’s very, very comforting, it’s very funny and whenever you think things in this country are pretty bonkers then you can read this book from the thirties and realise ‘Ah, they’ve always been fairly similar’ ... I love it.” IAN HISLOP As a young Scot exiled to the alien landscape of 1920s England, Douglas Cameron finds himself navigating his way through the intimacies and excesses of a nation undergoing great cultural and social upheaval. Witnessing the last gasps in the demise of a privileged earlier world, our hero finds himself negotiating archetypal English situations, including the lavish country house weekend, a traditional fox hunt, international diplomacy at the League of Nations and, most famously, a village cricket match – all as part of his efforts to compile a book capturing the essence of Englishness. Affectionately narrated, eloquent and poignant, yet at times just slightly ruthless and often with an acerbic note of satire, this description of England in the throes of social turmoil remains an hilarious, irreverent yet compassionate portrait. "5 stars A CLASSIC OF ENGLISH HUMOUR" Since winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize on publication in 1933, England, Their England has retained an enduring appeal for generations and is now regarded as a classic of literary humour. 5 stars - "So much more than just the cricket match." 5 stars - "Fun Everlasting." 5 stars - "Wonderful." 5 stars - "Such a good book."

England, Their England

Literature & Fiction

MacDonell, Archibald Gordon

Contemporary

Pan/Macmillan

The Autobiography of a Cad is the hilarious ‘memoir’ of an arch-rotter,chronicling the life of one (happily fictitious) Edward Fox-Ingleby. A. G.Macdonell had great fun in writing this book, undoubtedly his funniest. It iswritten as a tongue-in-cheek ‘autobiography’ of a man who ploughs his way through life shafting everyone around him. After inheriting an estate from his dull father while still at Eton, he then goes up to Oxford; adroitly evades service in the First World War, and finally becomes a Tory minister in the 1930s. A rotter and a chancer of the first order, Fox-Ingleby will do anything to get what he wants ―power, prestige, money, and sex.Macdonell was capable of wielding a wicked pen, and in Edward Fox-Ingleby he exposes the double-standards of the age, especially the cynicism and hypocrisy with which some of the wealthy were capable of concealing their actions. The style of humor is very British, and one reader ― Josef Goebbels the Reich Minister for Propaganda, in his diary entry for 8 December 1940 seems to have been taken in ― inconceivable as it appears, he thought the book to be of a genuine person. “I read a book by the Englishman MacDonell, Self-Portrait of a Gentleman, an unspeakably frivolous and cynical concoction that shows the English plutocrat without his mask. This is the face of the people whom we must overthrow.”

The Autobiography of a Cad (Fonthill Complete A. G. Macdonell)

Humor & Satire

Fonthill Media

The terrible implications of the rise of Nazism were rarely so accurately perceived as in A. G. Macdonell's prescient novel, Lords and Masters, first published in 1936. With rapturous satire, Macdonell exposes the unpleasant values of West End Society circles of the early 1930s, where fear of bolshevism led to a dangerous flirtation with fascism. War-profiteer Sir Montagu Anderton-Mawle and Nazi fanatic Veronica Hanson (modeled on Unity Mitford) are among Macdonell's greatest and most memorable characters, deftly personifying the arrogance and hypocrisy of the Mayfair monied set. Potent and prescient, Lords and Masters remains one of A. G.Macdonell's most important and enduring novels

Lords and Masters (Fonthill Complete A. G. Macdonell)

British & Irish

Writing under the pseudonym Neil Gordon, A. G. Macdonell wrote several crime and thriller novels. In the classic genre of ’20s and ’30s crime fiction,Macdonell managed to introduce a different element, unusual twists that keep the reader captivated and anxious to discover what came next. The Shakespeare Murders is another example of Macdonell’s carefully thought-through detective stories, where the detective is aided by the star of the cast. Peter Kerrigan saw a pickpocket take the wallet of a shabby little man, and with speed and precision he stole from the thief. Peter was a handsome gentleman-adventurer ― not too scrupulous ― and before he returned the pocketbook he read the letter which it contained. It was so that he heard of the million pound treasure, and began the search which was to lead him through so many horrors. At Marsh Manor he found the police trying to solve a murder, and lent somewhat grudging assistance; three more violent deaths followed rapidly. The working out of the solution to the mystery, and the final disposition of the treasure are brilliantly satisfying. The strictly logical framework of the book is filled in witty and entertaining fashion with strange and amusing characters. Macdonell uses his usual skill, well-dosed with ingenious twists, and a fast moving story-line, to keep the reader riveted to the book. Chase, conspiracy, and American gangsters add to the excitement of solving the Shakespeare riddle.

The Shakespeare Murders (Fonthill Complete A. G. Macdonell)

For those who have read and enjoyed Macdonell’s humorous and affectionate book England Their England, this book, My Scotland, will come as a shock. There are some lighter moments with the occasional flash of the Macdonell genius, but these apart it is a choleric tirade in a style which is not apparent in his other books. At the time of writing he was going through a messy divorce — brought about through his own extramarital adventures — and this may have added to his mood. He was born in India, brought up in London, educated at Winchester, provided with further excellent character-forming life-experience in France in muddy conditions, and then spent his working life in London. His formal address on his War Record documentation is Bridgefield, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, but it does not seem that he ever spent a great deal of time in Scotland. Therefore, the spleen and invective coming from someone who adopted England seems out of character. The only explanation is that it came about as the pent-up frustration out of forty years of hearing comments which he viewed as his national heritage being treated as a joke. From those that knew him he was remembered as a complex individual, ‘delightful … but quarrelsome and choleric’ (this was by Alec Waugh, who called him the Purple Scot). J. B. Morton (Beachcomber) remembered him as a man of conviction, with a quick wit and enthusiasm and, surprising in a military man, ‘a sense of compassion for every kind of unhappiness’. What is surprising, given his depth of knowledge of the English, and the fact that they joke about anything, is that he took it so seriously. Nevertheless, despite Macdonell’s exhortations for a ‘clammer for independence’ towards the end of the book, he did not practice what he preached, and instead of ‘leading from the front’ by preaching his new gospel from Edinburgh, he remained in England for the remainder of his days. For all those who feel that Scotland has been ‘hard-done-by’ this is a must-buy book.

My Scotland (UK)

Genre Fiction

In 1934, at the peak of the Great Depression, A. G. Macdonell embarked on a journey across America. This travelogue is the deliciously scathing product of that adventure: a vivid and unflinchingly honest record of life in the cities and the slums, on the roads, railways, and the vast open plains. The hot breath of the Apocalyptic Horsemen is on my neck, and I still wake up on occasions in peaceful England, cold with terror from the dream that I am once again upon the road. By the time he departed for America, Macdonell was an international celebrity, and as such, he was afforded a privileged glimpse into both the glamour and the gritty reality of 1930s America. With brutal humor he glides effortlessly between lavish dinners and dances at the Plaza Hotel, passionate football games comparable to the 'less pleasing features' of the First World War, and the humbling 'Spirit of the Pioneers' buried deep within the poverty-stricken cattle ranges of Montana. While his descriptions can be savage and mocking, Macdonell is also affectionate, compassionate, and startlingly insightful. In A Visit to America, he gamely captures all that is beautiful and repulsive about a country gripped in economic turmoil; fascinating and timeless, it is an indulgence not to be missed.

A Visit to America (US)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

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