Esprit de Corps

Imagine if P.G.Wodehouse was a diplomat: Durrell’s hilarious foreign office sketches are ‘sophisticated funny, but wonderful, and bonkers’ (Joanna Trollope)

‘A rewarding cocktail based on two parts Wodehouse and one part Saki … So much fun.’ New York Times

‘Whatever wars there may be and whatever crises, there will still, please heaven, be the diplomatic corps, with its protocol and formalities and a field for humour which I have never seen better used than in these stories.’ John Betjeman

After a lifetime serving that most delightfully British of institutions, the Foreign Office, Antrobus can’t resist musing over old times in Vulgaria at his London club – or should that be cringing … Rankled by farcical gaffes and absurd misadventures, from Yugoslav ghost trains to disastrous misprints (‘The Balkan Herald Keeps the British Flag Frying’), these delicious sketches lampoon English etiquette, empire, and eccentricity.

Celebrated British novelist, travel writer, and member of the real-life family portrayed in The Durrells in Corfu, Lawrence Durrell experienced the absurdities of mid-century diplomacy firsthand. His charming jeu d’esprit about the diplomatic corps is classic satire: but be warned: there’s a point where laughter can become painful …

‘My goodness it is funny.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Uproariously funny and shrewd … With the arrows of farce and of satire, he is on the target again and again.’ Evening Standard