Back in high school, a friend lent me a collection or two of Wodehouse’s short stories (of Jeeves and Wooster). I loved them to death; dry and sparkling writing that was both funny and evocative. It was Monet or Debussy would have written if they had been writers of comedic prose.
Anyway, I am feeling a need of that droll effervescence, and thought I’d add a book or two to my library, as I don’t own any and in fact haven’t read any in the intervening 15 or so years. But, doing a search, it seems that Wodehouse has published quite a lot. I can’t make heads or tails of what might be a good re-starting place, what is a complete collection (of Jeeves and Wooster, for example) as opposed to partial.
Any fans here have suggestions of specific books/collections?
I’m interested too! I’ve read some of the collections, but in a catch-as-catch can sort of way, without any method. I’ve enjoyed them that way. I’m not sure there’s a wrong way to read them!
(Have you seen any of the Laurie and Fry tv treatments? So delicious!)
there are several Jeeves novels available for free on Amazon.com for the Kindle, though most cost money. Also a lot of Jeeves short stories for free. A Damsel In Distress is not a Jeeves story, but it IS a freebie, and it’s pretty good. Not all the non-Jeeves stories are so good. But there is a shitload of Wodehouse freebies you can download and sample on Amazon. Prolly elsewhere, too.
Wow, talk about coincidence - I just decided to download some P.G. Wodehouse last week, and just finished reading Damsel In Distress two days ago! I found it at Project Gutenberg.
It wasn’t the Wodehouse I remembered with Jeeves, but it was quite good.
I will be reading some Jeeves soon.
Way back when I read some of his work for the first time, there was a line in one of the books where Bertie had said something stupid to his aunt and Wodehouse wrote that the aunt laughed so hard “if there had been an aisle, she would have been rolling in it.”
There are so many times, reading his work, that I just burst out laughing at the subtle humor…er, humour…in his stories.
There are several collections of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster stories, but there is no great need to read them in any particular order. However, Jeeves makes his first appearance in Jeeves Takes Charge which is in the collection titled Right Ho, Jeeves and Other Stories
Hmm, I ran throught all the Jeeves and Wooster books, then the Psmith books, maybe 25 years ago; damn I’m old.
From memory, I’d start with Uncle Fred in the Springtime - IIRC, it has all of the elements that make a Jeeves and Bertie story read like its a perfect screwball comedy of manners. I don’t recall that reading them in any order matters in a significant way and that one is just wonderful.
Man, I am jealous - those books go down like the best champagne mimosa you possibly imagine - fizzy goodness. Have a great time!
He had a lot of one-shot novels that are worth checking out. Uneasy Money and If I Were You come to mind immediately. There’s also the Mr. Mulliner stories-- Mr. Mulliner is a guy who manages to turn any conversation at the pub he frequents into an lead in to a story about people in his family.
Also his golf stories. All start at the clubhouse where the Oldest Member, who no longer plays but still hangs out at the club, traps some poor soul into listening to one of his anecdotes.
I agree with the Mulliner stories. From The Truth About George to the Firy Wooing of Mordred to the Hollywood stories, each one is a masterpiece of madcap humor wrapped in a seemingly reasonable premise. Some were produced as a TV series called, Wodehouse Playhouse, introduced by the old boy himself.
For the novels, the first I read was, Leave it to Psmith, and it’s still one of my favorites.
I’d recommend moving around from series to series. You can’t read all the Jeeves stories one after the other. They’re far too similar. And the later ones set in America don’t really work.
Some of Wodehouse’s books (especially the Jeeves & Woosters) work very well as audiobooks (assuming they have a good narrator—and there are several very good narrators who have recorded some of them).
Thanks to Audible’s “Whispersync” deal, you can sometimes get a cheap copy of the audiobook once you’ve bought the Kindle book from Amazon. So, for example, you could go to Amazon, “buy” the free public-domain ebook of Right Ho, Jeeves (which I can vouch for as one of the good ones), and get the Audible edition for $2.99.
Just chiming in to say…some of Wodehouse’s novels are slightly better than average (Thank You, Jeeves, is my favorite) and some are slightly worse than average but you really can’t go too far wrong with any of them (the very early ones, pre-1915, are journeyman efforts and should be left until later). There is an internal chronological order to some of the series but it is not worth the effort to read them in order. Pick up the most convenient one and read it, and then repeat.
I also recommend not reading too many at a sitting, because they do blur together. Also, the same novel was often published under several different titles, so you do have to be careful in that regard.
Why did you break the link if it’s a legitimate site? Why go to an Indian site in the first place? The OP is American. The Jeeves books are easily available cheaply here. And Wikipedia has better information on the complete Jeeves.
I like The Most Of P.G. Wodehouse as a good introduction, but as others have said you can’t really go wrong anywhere. However, I think the short stories are easier to start with and give you a flavor of some of the returning characters that appear elsewhere.
I have read that collection to pieces twice. I’m now on my third copy!
Also “Code of the Woosters” and the rest of the series with Spode, Madeleine Bassett, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Aunt Dahlia, and that damned cow creamer are Wodehouse at the top of his game!