Miss Bagshot Goes to Moscow

Miss Lavinia Bagshot, an English woman of seventy, was an indomitable traveler who had always made it a rule to behave abroad just as she behaved in England. She went even further in her thinking on this point: she firmly believed that compromise was both unnecessary and un-English. Naturally when she decided to go to Moscow, she proceeded as usual. Thus, even before she boarded the plane, she encountered difficulties, Russian rules and customs being what they are.

Her rather stuffy family felt the whole project was not only unwise for her, but likely to involve them in trouble, and her nephew tried without success to persuade a minor official in the foreign Office that this was the stuff of which international incidents are made. Though the official was not gifted with second sight, and so did nothing to prevent her departure, he felt the matter should be noted somehow and wrote the first report which was to grow into the famous Bagshot file.

The first contretemps was a clerical error which caused Miss Bagshot to be listed as a member of a delegation making a semi-official visit to Moscow. Neither the delegation nor Miss Bagshot relished her inclusion in the group, but the Russians ignored all explanations, and so her adventures started. When she finally managed to separate herself from the delegation, and was turned loose on Moscow on her own, the trend of events had already been set in motion.

Needing money by this time, she advertised her services as an English teacher with unpredictable consequences. She involved herself with the British ambassador's secretary, and through her, his office, and became the confidante and strategist for all the current flirtations in the English-speaking colony One thing led to another, and soon Miss Bagshot was a center of controversy and a problem for both East and West. The worst fears of involvement on the part of her family and, belatedly, the foreign office were realized.

All this and much more makes a very amusing story told with a light but somewhat satirical touch which results in a most entertaining first novel by a gifted new English author.