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P.G. Wodehouse

P G Wodehouse is widely recognized as the greatest English comic writer of the twentieth century. 
 
His characters and settings have entered our language and our mythology. The first ever collected edition (Wodehouse had many publishers in his lifetime), the Everyman Wodehouse, will contain all the novels and stories, newly edited and reset from the first British edition. 
 
Printed on cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, each Everyman volume is already recognized as the finest edition of the master ever published.

Monty Bodkin's pursuit of Gertude Butterwick is temporarily interrupted by his encounter with silver-screen siren Miss Lotus Blossom, who sees in him a means of restoring relations with her idol, the novelist Ambrose Tennyson. But Monty is not the only one with problems. Ambrose's brother Reggie has money troubles and Ikey Llewellyn is struggling with difficulties which would tax anyone's ingenuity, let alone his limited brain power. When the paths of these men collide, the ensuing plot complications produce a vintage Wodehouse farce involving London, New York, Hollywood and translatlantic liners. A delicious period piece from 1935.

The Luck Of The Bodkins

This is the tale of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, one of Wodehouse's favourite protagonists, and his fraught attempt to establish a business farming chickens on the coast of Dorset. The story is told by Jeremy Garnet through whose bemused eyes we observe the magnificent Ukridge at work while following Garnet's own chequered romance with the daughter of a neighbouring professor.

Love Among the Chickens

Trapped in the rural hell-hole of Steeple Bumpleigh with his bossy ex-fiancée, Florence Craye, her fire-breathing father, Lord Worplesdon, her frightful Boy-Scout brother, Edwin, and her beefy new betrothed, 'Stilton' Cheesewright, Bertie Wooster finds himself walking a diplomatic tightrope. With Florence threatening to ditch Stilton for Bertie, and Stilton threatening to trample on Bertie's insides if she does, things look black until Jeeves arrives to save the day. One of Wodehouse's most sparkling comedies, replete with an attendant cast of tyrannical aunts, demon children and literary fatheads.

Joy In The Morning

When Psmith finds himself working in the City for the pompous Mr Bickersdyke, he makes it his mission to bring a little sweetness and light into the bank manager's life. The monocled wit with the suave manner and the chivalrous but devil-may-care attitude to life is determined not to let honest toil depress him. The consequence is a series of battles in which Bickersdyke comes off worst and Wodehouse's readers best.

Psmith In The City

This charming story of the Jackson cricketing dynasty describes the adventures of Mike Jackson at boarding school as he makes his way up the sporting ladder to the first eleven. The young P. G. Wodehouse evokes the peaceful, prosperous world of middle-class England before the Great War,  a place where rich men hire private cricket professionals to coach their sons at home, and little seems to matter at school except the publishing of team lists and the taking of tea. But such is the novelist's skill that he can make excitement from the small-scale dramas of teenage life, and interest even the most unsporting reader in the cricket matches he describes so lovingly. A curiosity for those who know only the Wodehouse of Blandings and Piccadilly, but a delightful one.

Mike at Wrykyn

On doctor's orders, Bertie Wooster retires to the village of Maiden Eggesford but his rest-cure is interrupted by Aunt Dahlia who wants him to nobble a racehorse, Vanessa Cook who wants him to act as go-between for her and Orlo Porter -and Orlo Porter himself who would tear Bertie limb from limb if he ever discovered that Bertie and Vanessa were once engaged. Throw in a dotty explorer, an unreliable poacher, an irascible father and the stable cat, and the stage is set for a sublime farce

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoirs and England's aristocrats are all diving for cover, not least Galahad's formidable sister Lady Constance Keeble who fears that her brother will ruin the family reputation with saucy stories of the 1890s. But Galahad's memoirs are not the only cause for concern. Yet again Lord Emsworth's prize pig has been stolen and, as usual, the castle seems to be buzzing with imposters all pretending to be one another. Love and natural justice triumph in the end, but not before Wodehouse has tangled and unangled a plot of Shakespearean complexity in a novel which might as well be subtitled 'The Price of the Papers'.

Summer Lightning

Originally published as a serial in Chums under the pseudonym of Basil Windham, The Luck Stone is thoroughly Wodehouse with his trademark sticky situations, quirky characters, sly humour and wit, and of course, his renowned prose. All written in the form of a letter to a friend, this dark and suspenseful plot will never fail to disappoint

The Luck Stone

This volume reprints two of Wodehouse’s earliest books which take the form of story sequences linked by a central character, a technique he used many times thereafter. Delightful in themselves, they are interesting chiefly as windows on a great writer’s early evolution. 
 
In The Man of Means, he looks forward to Bertie Wooster and Ukridge, but also back to his Victorian models, in a fantastic tale of the little man struggling with fate. When a humble clerk comes into a fortune, he embarks on a series of misadventures which suggest that wealth is not necessarily an unmixed blessing. Here we see signs of the satirical writer Wodehouse might have become, and the spirit of Chaplin is not far away.

Kid Brady Stories & A Man of Means

When Bertie Wooster goes to stay with his Aunt Dahlia at Brinkley Court and find himself engaged to the imperious Lady Florence Craye, disaster treatens from all sides. While Florence tries to cultivate his mind, her former fiance, hefty policeman Stilton Cheesewright, threatens to beat his body to a pulp, and her new admirer, the bleating poet percy Gorringe, tries to borrow a thousand pounds. To cap it all, Bertie has incurred the disapproval of Jeeves by growing a moustach, thus alienating the only man who can save him from his trip to the altar. Throw in a disappearing pearl necklace, Aunt Dahlia's magazine Milady's Boudir, her cook Anatole, the Drones' dart match, and Mr and Mrs L. G. Trotter from Liverpool, and you have all the ingredients for a classic Wodehouse farce.

Jeeves And The Feudal Spirit

Love is a powerful spur, and Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps (known to his friends as Barmy) invests his modest fortune in a stage production, encouraged by his admiration for the delectable Miss Dinty Moore. And so he demonstrates that affairs of the heart and high finance may be happily combined.

Barmy in Wonderland

Anthony, fifth Earl of Droitwich, is engaged to Violet, a millionaires daughter which was a result of their families planning rather than natures course. Their plan to maintain the family coffers is undermined by the arrival of his Nanny whom under the influence of too much medicinal Brandy allows certain skeletons out of the family tomb. On top of this Anthony has fallen for manicurist Polly Brown whom the family don't consider to be countess material. Tony departs for London with the resourceful Polly Brown, leaving the ancestral home in the hands of the Socialist barber Syd Price...

If I Were You

This early novel, written in collaboration with a friend, is a fascinating curiosity which suggests that Wodehouse might have become a very different, experimental sort of writer, had he continued to write in the same vein. 
 
Using multiple narrators, playing with literary stereotypes and identities, it tells the story of an aspiring young writer, James Orlebar Cloyster, prepared to do almost anything, first for success and then for gratification. By making Cloyster a mild, affable young man of the sort so familiar in his later novels, Wodehouse creates a comic disparity between the character’s lofty professions of virtue and his unscrupulous behaviour. As the story progresses, we realise that he is not unusual: all the main characters are unscrupulous in one way or another, ready to cheat and lie in pursuit of their ends, hence the title of the book. 
 
Not George Washington contains many fine scenes, and Cloyster’s narrative displays the calm mastery of story-telling Wodehouse had already made his own. If awkwardly executed, it is cleverly plotted, springing several surprises along the way. Clearly autobiographical in origin, it also invites readers to reflect on the nature of talent, fame, failure and success, villainy and honour - themes which continued to recur in the author’s work for another sixty years.

Not George Washington

Lord Emsworth's prized pig, the Empress of Blandings, is at the centre of Wodehouse's hilarious tale of mistaken identity, the triumph of young love, and general mayhem among the twits at Blandings Castle.

Galahad at Blandings

Not-so-fresh off the tramp steamer from America, Sam Shotter settles in the sleepy suburb of Valley Fields. His pastoral peace is short-lived, however, when Soapy Molloy, Dolly the Dip, and Chimp Twist arrive on the scene looking for two million dollars they seem to have mislaid in the vicinity. Not only does Sam discover he's living right bang next door to the girl of his dreams, but he's sitting, rather embarrassingly, on a goldmine. Some rather superior sleuthing will be required.

Sam the Sudden

Freddie Widgeon wants the money to buy shares in a coffee plantation in Kenya so that he can marry Sally Foster. Soapy and Dolly Molloy want to get their hands on a cache of stolen jewels hidden in the house of Freddie's neighbour in the suburb of Valley Fields. When their paths cross, the ensuing misunderstandings lead to vintage Wodehouse comedy.

Ice in the Bedroom

Wodehouse's well-known gift for satisfying plots and comic surprises is evident on every page, but there are also signs of his debt to earlier writers in the realistic tradition. Set mainly in London or New York, many of the stories concern ordinary people -  shopassistants, schoolmasters, secretaries, servants, unsuccessful writers  - living the life of rented rooms and cheap cafés Wodehouse knew well from his own experience. Yet there is nothing sad or gloomy about these tales. Far from it: they are brimming with life and energy, beautifully written and invariably delightful. And for Wodehouse addicts there is also a goodly sprinkling of goofy young men about town and their valets to satisfy the strongest appetites

The Man Upstairs

Very Good Jeeves! (1930) is a collection of eleven short stories starring Bertie Wooster in eleven alarming predicaments from which he has to be rescued by his peerless gentleman's gentleman. Whether Bertie is tangling with a red-headed ball of fire such as Roberta Wickham, dealing with an irate headmistress, placating a rampaging aunt, puncturing the wrong hot water bottle, singing 'Sonny Boy', or simply trying to concentrate on his golf handicap, Jeeves is always there to help - though rarely in ways which his employer expects. These brilliantly plotted stories give the essence of Wodehousian comedy.

Very Good, Jeeves!

In nine of Wodehouse's ripest stories from the 1920s, the characters are united by their worship of golf. From Rodney Spelvin, the sickeningly good-looking romantic poet who comes to his senses when he discovers the game, to Rollo Podmarsh, who finishes his round even when he thinks himself fatally poisoned, and Chester Meredith who discovers eloquence on the eighteenth green, we meet the full range of humanity in fair weather and foul. 
P.G. Wodehouse is recognised as the greatest English comic writer of the twentieth century. His characters and settings have entered our language and our mythology. Launched on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, the Everyman Wodehouse will eventually contain all the novels and stories, edited and reset. Each Everyman volume will be the finest edition of the master ever published.

The Heart of a Goof

Following the death of Carmen Flores, the lubricious Mexican star, Adela Cork buys her Hollywood house. Hoping to escape from the domineering Adela, her brother-in-law Smedley, who has lived with her since losing his money, searches the house for Carmen's legendary lost diary, in the belief that its scorching revelations about the sex life of her fellow stars will make him millions. He is helped and hindered by a safe-blowing butler, a pompous movie mogul, a posse of unemployed scriptwriters, and the redoubtable Adela herself. Fortunately, Adela's sister, 'Bill' Shannon, not for nothing nicknamed 'the Old Reliable', is on hand to ensure a satisfactory outcome. A light comedy which is also a sharp satire on Hollywood mores.

The Old Reliable

It all starts with an umbrella, the best to be found in the Drones Club. From such an innocent beginning Wodehouse weaves a comic tale of suspense and romance involving one of his most distinctive early heroes, Ronald Eustace Psmith, monocled wit and devil-may-care boulevardier. Unusually for Wodehouse, this is not only a light comedy but also an adventure story in which crime and even gun-play drive the plot.

Leave It To Psmith

Pongo Twistleton is in a state of financial embarrassment, again. Uncle Fred, meanwhile, has been asked by Lord Emsworth to foil a plot to steal the Empress, his prize pig. Along with Polly Pott (daughter of old Mustard), they form a deputation to Blandings Castle, bent on doing a "bit of good".

Uncle Fred In The Springtime

Nothing but trouble can ensue when Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia instructs him to steal a silver jug from Totleigh Towers, home of magistrate and hell-hound, Sir Watkin Bassett. First he must face the peril of Sir Watkin's droopy daughter, Madeleine, and then the terrors of would-be Dictator, Roderick Spode and his gang of Black Shorts. But when duty calls, Bertram answers, and so there follows what he himself calls the 'sinister affair of Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeleine Bassett, old Pop Bassett, Stiffy Byng, the Rev. H. P. ('Stinker') Pinker, the eighteenth-century cow-creamer and the small, brown, leather-covered notebook'. In a plot with more twists than an English country lane, it takes all the ingenuity of Jeeves to extract his master from the soup again.

The Code Of The Woosters

When Jill Mariner is arrested for fighting over a parrot and then loses all her money on the same day, she is abandoned by her pompous fiancé and goes to stay with her rich relations on Long Island. Uncle Elmer is delighted to see her – until he finds out that Jill is penniless. Heading for New York, she ends up in the chorus of a musical comedy on Broadway where she eventually finds the man of her dreams. A light romantic comedy in Wodehouse’s most charming manner.

Jill The Reckless

The first of the Blandings Castle novels, introducing Lord Emsworth, his family, his secretary – the Efficient Baxter – and the mandatory Wodehouse cast of butlers, aunts, younger sons, detectives, lovers and imposters. Take the 4.15 from Paddington Station to Shropshire and arrive in heaven.

Something Fresh

A collection of stories in which familiar characters and places are reintroduced in unfamiliar circumstances, reminding us – if we need reminding – of their author's limitless powers of comic invention. In the title story – one of Wodehouse's longest and best shorter fictions – Lord Emsworth takes his revenge on his ghastly secretary, the Efficient Baxter, setting off a wave of similar reprisals at Blandings Castle with amazing results. In other tales we meet several members of the Drones Club, while the final three reunite us with the ineffable Ukridge, more of whose ever-optimistic schemes for making easy money come to grief. A delightful meeting with old friends for some readers, a superb introduction to the world of Wodehouse for others.

Lord Emsworth And Others

Containing drafts of stories later rewritten for other collections (including Carry On, Jeeves), My Man Jeeves offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of comic literature's most celebrated double-act. All the stories are set in New York, four of them featuring Jeeves and Wooster themselves; the rest concerning Reggie Pepper, an earlier version of Bertie. Plots involve the usual cast of amiable young clots, choleric millionaires, chorus-girls and vulpine aunts, but towering over them all is the inscrutable figure of Jeeves, manipulating the action from behind the scenes. 
Early or not, these stories are masterly examples of Wodehouse's art,turning the most ordinary incidents into golden farce.

My Man Jeeves

Everyone in Company for Henry wants to escape from something. Hard-up Henry Paradene would like to unload his hideous country house on his millionaire American cousin, J. Wendell Stickney. Wendell wishes he could be rid of his embarrassing aunt Kelly, while Kelly wants to escape her financial dependence on Wendell. Henry's niece, Jane, needs to part from her glamorous but ghastly fiancé, Lionel, while Bill Hardy, who falls for Jane, needs no convincing to abandon the bachelor state. Jane's brother Algey, meanwhile, spends his time thinking up dodgy schemes to lift himself out of poverty. Everything ends happily ever after for most of them, but only when they have been put through the hoops of a classic Wodehouse plot.

Company For Henry

A damsell in distress - an Almost Blandings novel set in Belphi Castle, Hampshire and a two week house party for the son-and-heir's 21st.

A Damsel In Distress

The action of the novel takes place at the fictional "Beckford College", a private school for boys; the title alludes to the arrival at the school of a mischievous young boy called Farnie, who turns out to be the uncle of the older "Bishop" Gethryn, a prefect, cricketer and popular figure in the school. His arrival, along with that of another youngster who becomes fag to Gethryn, leads to much excitement and scandal in the school, and the disruption of some important cricket matches.

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