Macdonell, A G: Autobiography of a Cad (1938), v1 5 March 2019
 

Outrageously funny novel by A G Macdonell, author of "England, Their Engand"; a literary ancestor of the Flashman stories.

Edward Percival Fox-Ingleby (b 1889) traces his rise in wealth and prominence from early days at Eton and Oxford, shameless toadying, war profiteering, and money-making schemes such as building a bungalow housing development on an area of outstanding natural beauty, to devious manipulation of markets and even his own wife and child.

The tale ends specifically in 1926, and leaves the reader hoping that the crash of 1929 ruined him, but with the uneasy feeling that, like Joe Kennedy, he would somehow make a fortune out of that, too.

Text source Faded Page; cover re-created from 1st Ed dust jacket. (Original cover scan was too grotty!)