The novel is partly based on Waugh's experience of working for the "Daily Mail", when he was sent to cover Benito Mussolini's expected invasion of Abyssinia, later known as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (October 1935 to May 1936). When he got a scoop on the invasion, he telegraphed the story back in Latin for secrecy but they discarded it. Waugh wrote up his travels more factually in "Waugh in Abyssinia" (1936), which complements "Scoop".