The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America

Clarence Chugwater is not a Boy Scout for nothing. It is summer 1909 and everyone is too interested in the Test Match to notice that England has been invaded by the Germans. And the Russians. And the Chinese. Not to mention a ‘boisterous band of the Young Turks’, a mad Mullah, and a brace of North African pirates. The government has recently abolished the army so there is nothing to be done about it anyway, except give a masterly display of polite indifference. But this would be to reckon without patriotic Clarence, ‘Boy of Destiny’, who alone is prepared to stand up to the foe, and who devises a highly unorthodox plan to restore his country to freedom…

An amusing jeu d’esprit of the young Wodehouse, which satirizes the popular ‘Invasion literature’ of the era while poking gentle fun at English (and Foreign) manners and generally revelling in absurdity. The Swoop! Or, How Clarence Saved England reprints the 33 black and white drawings by C. Harrison that accompanied the first edition. It is supplemented byThe Military Invasion of America, in which Clarence’s story is humorously transplanted across the Atlantic.