Publisher's Synopsis
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 cafes. 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. Includes; The Man Upstairs Something To Worry About Deep Waters When Doctors Disagree By Advice Of Counsel Rough-Hew Them How We Will The Man Who Disliked Cats Ruth In Exile Archibald's Benefit The Man, The Maid, And The Miasma The Good Angel Pots O' Money Out Of School Three From Dunsterville The Tuppenny Millionaire Ahead Of Schedule Sir Agravaine The Goal-Keeper And The Plutocrat In Alcala P.G. Wodehouse was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of pre-war English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career. An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea," a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend. Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of 15 plays and of 250 lyrics for some 30 musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song "Bill" in Kern's Show Boat, wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin - Romberg musical Rosalie, and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers.