Mandoa, Mandoa! A Comedy of Irrelevance.

Bookseller Notes

A superb copy of this scarce book, her fifth novel. The novel bears a printed dedication to her Somerville College friend, 'Vera Brittain, irrelevantly' - the latter, in 'A Testament of Friendship', called it 'the wittiest and most scintillating' of her novels [...] a ruthless and vivid satire on British imperialism'. It concerns the fictional 'isolated principality' of Mandoa, primarily based on Abyssinia, and the incidental incursion of a British cohort that includes Tory M.P. Maurice Durrant, his socialist brother Bill, and their friend Jean Stanbury - the latter, 'bound to a life of duty and self-sacrifice' in forgoing marriage in the service of her activism, likely a self-portrait. Holtby had been in South Africa in 1926 to speak on behalf of the League of Nations Union, and retained an interest in African affairs.With the underlying inspiration of the domestic political turmoil ensuing from the 1931 General Election and the Coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie, the novel bears similarities in plot and pitch to Waugh's 'Black Mischief', which caused (she lamented in correspondence) a 'literary steeplechase of which I thoroughly disapprove'.