The Autobiography of a Cad

by A.G. Macdonell, Simon Hoggart (Introduction)

The Autobiography of a Cad is a hilarious mock memoir of the life and times of one Edward Fox-Ingleby. It ranges from his earliest memories of his father's Midlands estate, through Eton, Oxford, and the Great War, to his installation as 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, money, and of course, lashings of the fairer sex. His memoir, an attempt to legitimize his detestable life, is prone to bouts of grand prolix and riddled with misogyny, bigotry, and more than the odd sleight of hand. Turning a perpetually blind eye to his devious and malicious acts, Fox-Ingleby chooses instead to portray himself as a gentleman misunderstood. But this despicable cad is always just one step away from having his Machiavellian plots uncovered, making this a marvelous tale of seedy intrigue.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Humor

253 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Archibald Gordon Macdonell was a Scottish writer, journalist and broadcaster, whose most famous work is the gently satirical novel England, Their England (1933).

Reviews

[Jordan West · Rating 4 out of 5]

Or, Portrait of the Total A-Hole as a Young Man.

A wry, not unjustly bitter satire in the form of a character study, Macdonell's novel may be one of the best explorations of the reactionary/authoritarian personality ever put to paper. Fox-Ingleby, the titular cad, is a remarkable (if supremely hateful) character, part Bertie Wooster, part Flashman, part David Brent, and part Patrick Bateman; while busy praising his own moral and intellectual superiority, the great things he's achieved, and the adversities overcome, Ingleby is blithely unaware that his own words are undercutting the narrative he is trying to sell, and in fact are revealing him as the villain of this story. It is soon obvious that our 'hero' is an arrogant elitist, a hypocrite of mammoth proportions, a misogynistic philanderer, a moneygrubbing Scrooge, a pathological liar, a poor loser, and a coward. The book draws its power from the conflict between events and Ingleby's tortured interpretations of reality; a cad painting himself as a colossus, with his vices as virtues. In his own mind, he is a scion of English nobility, a war hero, a true friend, and indispensable to his country; in fact, Ingleby is a descendent of middle-class nouveau riche who bought their way into respectability, weaseled out of serving in WW1, picks and discards the people around him depending upon their usefulness, and is little more than a minor politician serving in an unimportant ministry; all the while hystericaly attacking anyone who does the right thing, gets on his bad side, or indeed,gets the better of him in any way as the enemies of civilization. It is this vile buffoon's ridiculous wrongheadedness that keeps the reader turning pages, even as we want to see the rat bastard beaten with axe handles. Despite being written in 1939, this is an all-too prescient work, foreshadowing the 80's 'me generation', and the 'tea party' of the present day; indeed, the overentitled nits busy screeching about socialism could hardly find a better spokesman than Edward Fox-Ingleby.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who has ever read George MacDonald Fraser's FLASHMAN books (about the post-school exploits of Harry Flashman, the bully from Tom Browns School Days) might enjoy this book. Granted Edward Fox-Ingleby, our character, does not lead as an adventurous life as old Flashy (as MacDonell's inspiration here is not historical pulp and war fiction), instead we are given just how a man born to wealth, your standard Conservative toff, would have lived his life and comported himself during the first part of the 20th Century.

The key to all this is the old saw about "everyone is the hero of their own story." Because Fox-Ingleby is a cad, a blackguard, a bounder and a snob. He's a racist, a sexist, untrustworthy, a back-stabber, a war profiteer, a cheat and, most of all, a hypocrite. Everything he does, he does for himself and his own advancement. And yet, he tells us about all of his actions and thoughts, content in the knowledge that we accept and understand his justifications - because he always has a reason, even if it contradicts a "great moral stand" he took just pages before. He's always the one making the sacrifice, he's always the better man - as he betrays friends, abandons mistresses and illegitimate children, blackmails doctors (so he has a handy abortionist when he may need one - which, of course, does not stop him from taking a moral stand against the weak character of the underclass), cheats on his wife, betrays his government, treats his servants and the poor like shit, defrauds the stock market and smears his political enemies. And multiplies his wealth and position in life while doing so. A weasel can always find a way out of a trap and Fox-Ingleby is the weaseliest of weasels.

Is this funny? Well, yes - I laughed out loud at least 3 times and chuckled sardonically quite a bit. But it's a droll kind of funny (MacDonnell isn't working scenarios up to some kind of crowning scene of slapstick chaos or anything like that) - most of the humor comes from the audacity of Fox-Ingleby's actions and the sheer gall and lack of self-reflection he displays in turning rhetorical cartwheels to justify himself. Fans of P.G. Wodehouse might find this Edwardian-set story an interesting counterpoint to that work - in a "what if there was no Jeeves and Bertie was a complete bastard?" sense. Nowadays, of course, the humor may seem a little curdled because Fox-Ingleby is certainly a model by which the sub-human Conservatives in the UK live their lives and justify themselves (and here I note Fox-Ingleby's aside, re Mussolini, how wonderful it would be if England had such a Democracy as Italy's in which the will of the people mattered not at all and did not stand in the way of the will of their betters). Fox-Ingleby, no doubt, would have loved Brexit (if he had maneuvered himself to benefit the most out of it) but then, if he had survived to WWII, he also probably figured a way to gain some political/military appointment (through blackmail, crawling or backstabbing) that assured he would be in no danger, while profiting off sales of weapons to both the Nazis and Americans.

So here's to Fox-Ingleby - his kind have triumphed and, while THEY may be the better off for it, civilization is the worst for it...

[Caleb Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great satire written in 1939 that still has a full set of very sharp teeth. Edward Fox-Ingleby is a wonderfully despicable character, a virtuosic collection of condescension, smugness, self-satisfaction, and self-justified general horridness. His entire memoir is an epic mansplaining. Some people complain about books by saying "I didn't like the characters," as if enjoying reading about a character is somehow equivalent to liking a real person. I will point these people in a different direction. They will not like Edward Fox-Ingleby, because he is awful. Well, yes, but so are many of the characters they see on television once a week, such as Donald Trump. This book is both a spot-on field guide to a kind of jackass that clutters up Washington and Wall Street to this day, and one of the funniest books I've read in a long time.

[A Bushra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written, and not unamusing. At its best, it reads like a parody of Powell's Dance To The Music Of Time.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very funny in parts quite a cad indeed, was a shame he never got his comeuppance but then I guess that’s the point

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific satire - the narrator is so awful, the archetypal cad, and yet somehow you almost start rooting for him...

[Sarah Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and exceptionally well written.