Lord Emsworth and Others

Book Description

In Lord Emsworth and Others, readers are treated to a selection of familiar characters and places, in new and unfamiliar circumstances. Fans and initiates will be highly entertained.

Customer Reviews:

Top-shelf Wodehouse.......2004-07-21

A great collection of stories that do not involve my perennial favorites Bertie and Jeeves. I'm especially enamoured with Wodehouse's way of naming club members either Bean, Crumpet and Egg, or (as in Buried Treasure) after their drinks. Highly recommend for Anglophiles everywhere.

Laugh-out-loud funny!.......2002-03-30

This is an exceptional collection of Wodehouse's short stories. He hits a grand slam immediately with "Crime Wave at Blandings," which tells the hilarious tale of what happens when a senior citizen with a tendency toward nostalgia gets his hands on an air gun for the first time since his childhood. Wodehouse is the greatest when it comes to light-hearted stories that poke gentle fun at our human foibles. If you want to laugh out loud, buy this book!

Fun with an airgun........2002-01-20

Mix yourself a hot Scotch and lemon and dive in. Emsworth is at his finest when confronted with the horrific possibility that he may be forced to take The Efficient Baxter on as his secretary again. Also there is a Mulliner tale, 3 golf stories as related by the the Oldest Member and 3 Ukridge stories. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge has as usual tried everything to raise a few quid -- including renting his aunt's house while she is away in Hollywood, training Battling Billson the prize-fighter and pawning his aunt's diamond brooch. The funniest is the Emsworth story, while the others seem more like unfinished sketches that Master Plum (Wodehouse) was toying with.

A really funny book and very entertaining!.......2001-09-17

I very highly recommend this book. It's very funny and entertaining. I'd give it more stars if I could. I really enjoy all of P.G. Wodehouse's books. In my opinion , this is one of his very best.

Wodehouse at His Best -- And No Jeeves in Sight!.......2000-11-22

This collection of short stories begins with one about the title character, Lord Emsworth, a constantly befuddled old man who only wants to putter away his time if only his energetic relatives would let him. Though not my favorite Emsworth saga, this one is excellently written and endlessly hilarious. All the other stories are similarly well done, but they all begin to meld together somehow. I would have preferred more variety in the approach. If you read this (and you should!), I recommend one story at a time, and allow some good space between stories. Use an episode perhaps as a palate cleanser between each of those long lugubrious novels you insist on reading. That way you'll get the max out of the book, and every story will remain distinctive.

Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Must-have for Blandings fans
9 Blandings short stories

Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best (Penguin Modern Classics)
P.G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Galahad At Blandings: A Blandings Story
Sunset at Blandings
Full Moon
Uncle Fred in the Springtime (A Blandings Story)
Hot Water

ASIN: 0141185740

Customer Reviews:

Must-have for Blandings fans.......2006-01-29

If you're making your way through the Blandings cycle, this is a book you need to get. It contains all of the Blandings short stories in one handy volume. Until I found this, I was continually searching libraries for out-of-print short story collections to fill in the gaps between novels. If you want to read them in order, here it is:

1915 Something Fresh
1923 Leave it to Psmith
1924 The Custody of the Pumpkin*
1926 Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best*
1927 Pig-Hoo-o-o-o-ey*
1928 Company for Gertrude*
Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend*
1929 Summer Lightning
1931 The Go-getter*
1933 Heavy Weather
1936 The Crime Wave at Blandings*
1939 Uncle Fred in the Springtime
1947 Full Moon
1950 Birth of a Salesman*
1952 Pigs Have Wings
1961 Service With a Smile
1965 Galahad at Blandings
1966 Sticky Wicket at Blandings*
1969 A Pelican at Blandings
1977 Sunset at Blandings (posthumous)

* Short stories in this collection

Enjoy!

9 Blandings short stories.......2003-06-09

"I have devoured his work repeatedly and voraciously, not merely because he is a great comic writer, but because I think he is arguably the greatest musician of the English language I have ever encountered. He may not have anything to say about Real Life (he would hoot at the very idea) but art practised at that level doesn't have to be *about* anything..."
- Douglas Adams, quoted in Muir's introduction

Only the first 6 Blandings stories in this collection can be found in BLANDINGS CASTLE. (For those unfamiliar with the Earl of Emsworth, there are also several Blandings novels, starting with SOMETHING FRESH).

In the introduction, Muir, who knew Plum (if I may call him so), draws a few comparisons between Plum and Lord Emsworth: both men's lives were run by strong women (Ethel Wodehouse in one case, Emsworth's sister Lady Constance in the other), and they shared "the agony of having to dress up and waste time being social; the disinclination to argue (Plum once tried to arrange with Guy Bolton that should one of them be talked about insultingly the other would not argue but agree, and, if possible, add details)." :) (Muir also quotes a lot of Plum's good lines, which is bound to pep up anybody's writing.)

Lord Emsworth is an elderly, widowed peer devoted to Blandings Castle, his home in Shropshire; his greatest joy is his prize pig, Empress of Blandings, and his greatest trial is his younger son Freddie. As in the Wooster stories, a lot of young people crop up in various states of romantic difficulty. According to Freddie, the family treats Blandings like a Bastille to separate youngsters from unsuitable entanglements (being in Shropshire, it's inconvenient to reach from London).

Emsworth's mind won't stay on anything except important matters, such as whether the roses have greenfly or Whiffles' CARE OF THE PIG. He's not foolish, but it's so hard to get him to concentrate on anything that doesn't interest him that it's usually hard to tell.) His butler has more of a grip than he does, but Beach isn't a Jeeves clone.

"The Custody of the Pumpkin" Blandings has a tyrannical Scottish head gardener, McAllister by name. This story introduces Aggie Donaldson, a young American relation of McAllister's who's just become engaged to Freddie, Emsworth's younger son. Since Emsworth has always dreamed of some eligible girl who'd support Freddie, thus relieving *him* of having to do so, he immediately tries to pressure McAllister into sending Aggie away, leaving 2 problems: 1) Freddie's romantic entanglement, but 2) the bigger problem of Emsworth having sacked his head gardener just before competing in the pumpkin class at the Shrewsbury Show. And Angus McAllister has his pride, of course...

"Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best" - but in this case, his new beard has made him a laughingstock behind his back, to the point where Beach plans to give notice so as to speak his mind. Emsworth, of course, is clueless; he's worried about why Freddie has returned from America 8 months after marrying the daughter of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits, and sending telegrams that he's in trouble. (Freddie fits right in with Bertie Wooster's crowd, except that he has a job.)

"Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!" After Blandings' pig-man got 14 days for being drunk and disorderly on his birthday (that's a good one in itself), the Empress stopped eating, so Emsworth's more worried about the Shropshire Agricultural Show than who his niece Angela wants to marry.

"Company for Gertrude" - another of Emsworth's nieces, sent to Blandings to separate her from an unsuitable young parson. But "Beefy" Bingham was at Oxford with Freddie, and Freddie's back in England, trying to sell dog-biscuits. Unfortunately, Freddie is the last person to know how to impress Emsworth...

"The Go-getter" is Freddie, who's actually a lot like his dad, but about selling dog-biscuits to his aunt Georgiana rather than about Blandings. Even he notices that cousin Gertrude's engagement to Bingham is coming unstuck, now that she's met a BBC tenor staying with Lady Constance - somebody far less promising than Bingham.

"Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend" The 'girl friend' is actually a little girl from London, out for the August Bank Holiday, who wins Emsworth's heart by throwing stones at McAllister, the head gardener - and for her sake, Emsworth might even show a little backbone for once. [Rudyard Kipling considered this one of the most perfect short stories he knew.]

"The Crime Wave at Blandings" Emsworth's little grandson George stalking Blandings with an airgun isn't the problem; the problem is that the *adults* can't be trusted with it after its confiscation. :)

"Birth of a Salesman" Lord Emsworth, attending a wedding in New York, mistakenly chose to stay with Freddie rather than with a female relative with 6 Pekinese dogs. Now that Freddie's finally earning a living rather than sponging on his father, he's gotten uppity about people who neither toil nor spin.

"Sticky Wicket at Blandings" Not only is Freddie at Blandings on another UK sales campaign - so is his uncle Galahad, his father's younger brother. Two generations of no-good younger sons in residence at once. :) Topping it all off, Lady Constance has taken it into her head that Blandings needs a more up-to-date butler than Beach.

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Lord Emsworth and Others
P G Wodehouse
Manufacturer: Herbert Jenkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J32B82

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Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend
P.G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: The Talking Tape Co Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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Lord Emsworth's Annotated Whiffle
James Hogg
Manufacturer: Michael Joseph Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0718134761

Lord Emsworth's Annotated Whiffle: The Care of the Pig

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Lord Emsworth's Annotated Whiffle: The Care of the Pig
James Hogg
Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Uncle Fred in the Springtime + Lord Emsworth and Others. Heron P G Wodehouse Collected Works

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Uncle Fred in the Springtime + Lord Emsworth and Others. Heron P G Wodehouse Collected Works
P G Wodehouse
Manufacturer: Heron
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IYTPG8

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A Ripping Good Read, What?
Galahad in his prime
A really good read!
Enough to Make a Cat Laugh
Fruity Fun Frolics About British Upper Class Follies

Galahad at Blandings (Unabridged)
P. G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
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Sunset at Blandings
Pigs Have Wings
Uncle Fred in the Springtime (A Blandings Story)
Life at Blandings (OMNIBUS)
Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best (Penguin Modern Classics)

ASIN: B000BDC8HE

Book Description

Galahad can't abide broken hearts, so when a rash of broken couples crops up--along with a meddlesome mother and a drunken pig--he tries to put everything right.

Customer Reviews:

A Ripping Good Read, What? .......2005-09-11

Readers versed in the Wodehouse canon will recall a delightful episode titled "Extricating Young Gussie." This installment in the Blandings Castle saga could be titled "Gally extricates everyone." It's not much about Lord Emsworth, and the perennially prize winning pig, Empress of Blandings, features only in a bit part. The usual bevy of imperious aunts cause the usual sackfuls of trouble for numerous tangled hearts. But the plot, such as it is, turns on Lord Emsworth's resourceful brother, the loveable rogue, Galahad Threepwood, and his Jeeves- like power to make things come right. While some of Lord Emsworth's behavior seems uncharacteristic, this later novel from 1965 is nevertheless prime Wodehouse and a ripping good read.

Galahad in his prime.......2002-03-14

Galahad at Blandings is a book part of the Blandings Castle series, but I wouldn't call it Wodehouse's best book. It is a about a couple, Sam and Sandy, and how they come together. They have a fight, and Sam comes to Blandings Castle as an imposter, to resolve the fight, as Sandy won't talk to him at all. Then in the end, money is given, fights are resolved, and everyone is happy. It is a tremendously funny book, as many of the main character are quite eccentric, so I suggest you pick up a copy quickly. Enjoy!!! Cheers!!!!!!!!! : )

A really good read!.......2001-09-17

This story by P.G. Wodehouse is very entertaining and a really good read. A great escape into the magical world of Wodehouse.

Enough to Make a Cat Laugh.......2001-02-19

The Hon. Galahad Threepwood is back. This time he has assigned himself the dubious task of bringing three different couples together. The setting is England, Blandings Castle, of course, complete with the amiable dunce Lord Emsworth and his prize-winning porker, the Empress, infamous for her role in `PIG-HOO-EY'.

On his way to London to pick up his brother Clarence (Lord Emsworth), Galahad, a dapper middle-aged man eyes the name on a sinister package that Lord Emsworth's secretary Sandy Callendar has asked him to post. The parcel is addressed to a chap named Bagshott. This detail excites Galahad's curiosity because he used to be bosom with a fellow named Bagshott. But the Bagshott that the Hon. Galahad knew (Boko) had long since retired from the earth. Discovering that the contents of said package are a pile of letters that will effectively sunder Sandy Callendar's relationship with Boko's son, Samuel Galahad Bagshott, Gally becomes determined to keep the sparring couple afloat. Having been staunchly opposed to sundered hearts since he was a boy, Galahad Threepwood is resolved to put matters right.

Sam and Sandy's dispute happens to be related to gambling and, well, naturally, the Drones Club. You see Sam stands to gain a sackful in a sweep if Tipton Plimsoll (fellow Drones Club member) weds the pretty dolt Veronica Wedge, Lord Emsworth's niece. But Sandy is diametrically opposed to the whole enterprise, urging Sam to part with the debatably generous syndicate offer. And she still hasn't forgiven Sam for telling her that she looks like a "horror from outer space" with a particular pair of glasses on. Plus, Sandy is a redhead, making the task for Gally that much more difficult - as we all know, redheaded women have short and irrational tempers. Enter the "pint-sized bozo," Wilfred Allsop, cousin of Veronica Wedge. On a bender one night in New York with his new friend Tipton Plimsoll, Willie, who somewhat "resembles the poet Shelley," reveals his affections for Lord Emsworth's pig lady, Monica Simmons. Tipton Plimsoll endorses the arrangement despite his belief that Ms. Simmons has the appearance of an "all-in wrestler."

As it is, all three of these impending alliances are dependent upon each other and the Hon. Galahad Threepwood knows it. You'll have to read the story to find out whether or not Gally is successful with his scheme to reunite the warring couples. Just know that he is a skilled raconteur and "teller of the tale." Gally will never miss a beat and he stays on top of it all, undoubtedly aided by his fondness for cocktails at all hours.

Galahad has many passions in life. One is to protect the reputation of one of his oldest and greatest friends, whiskey. Disgusted and offended by "coloured slides" and "temperance lectures" Gally goes on an anti-Tea tirade, accusing "the muck" as he calls it, of being responsible for the death of his poor, dear old friend Buffy Struggles, who "got run over by a hansom cab as he was crossing Piccadilly." Evidently, tea had sapped Buffy's strength.

Recalling another seemingly outrageous send-up, the Hon. Galahad exclaims, "The only safe way to get through life is to pickle your system thoroughly in alcohol." The story to prove the aforementioned theory involved two brothers, Freddie and Eustace Potts. Their French chef once served them a hedgehog while pretending that it was a chicken just to save some money. Well, Eustace, who was a "teetotaler" nearly died, but Freddie, who "had lived mostly on whiskey since early boyhood" showed no ill effects at all after consuming the carcass.

A large part of Gally wishes he could go back to his days at the Pelican Club. There, he would fascinate the members with his inimitable wit, and tireless devotion to mopping the sauce up like a vacuum cleaner in London pubs. Galahad happily recalls his days of getting pinched by the gendarmerie for being drunken and disorderly, vaunting that it would always take three of them to drag him away to the jug.

I recommend this book, especially as a device for teaching English. As the plot thickens, and it does thicken, especially when the Empress gets pie-eyed, and Gally is stretched not quite to his limits, the reader becomes aware that the Hon. Galahad could have been the Prime Minister if he had wanted to. Threepwood is a leader of the first rank - truly a man that we can all look up to. What Ho, Gally?

Fruity Fun Frolics About British Upper Class Follies.......2001-01-05

P.G. Wodehouse once said that you could write about life as it is or as musical comedy. He chose to do the latter. As a result, I strongly prefer to listen to audio recordings of Mr. Wodehouse's novels. The dramatic portrayals add a great deal to the humor of the stories. This is the first one that I have heard by Jeremy Sinden. He is very talented and flexible in his characterizations, moving easily from men to women, from one English class to another, and even to including Americans.

If you are familiar with the stories about Jeeves and the gentleman he serves, Bertram (Bertie) Wooster, which Mr. Wodehouse also wrote, you will feel at home with this tale, as well. Galahad plays the Jeeves-like role, but with greater elan than Jeeves ever did. You'll like Galahad. He's never let a pal down, and he has lots of them from his days carousing at the old Pelican Club. He's the bright, ne'er-do-well younger brother of Clarence, Lord Emsworth (who is fond of pigs, especially his prize-winning, Empress of Blandings, and his peace and quiet).

The story begins with a misunderstanding (not unlike the ones that Shakespeare used in his comedies -- it must be something about the water in England). An American millionaire, Tipton Plimsoe (I apologize for the fact I may have the spellings wrong in this review, since I have only heard the audio cassettes), runs into his fiancee's cousin, and they imbibe a bit too much. In the middle of the night, he awakens to find himself in jail. Someone has taken the millionaire's wallet, so he has no money to post bail. The cousin remembers that Lord Emsworth is in New York, staying at the Plaza, so they call him. Lord Emsworth is a little simple and has a poor memory. Although he dispatches the $20 by messenger to release the two, he mistakenly interprets this as meaning that the millionnaire has lost all of his money in the stock market crash of 1929 (the backdrop of this story).

The consequences of this misunderstanding almost cause three sets of lovers to be kept apart and Lord Emsworth to become engaged to a most unsuitable person. Worse yet, the Empress of Blandings herself is put at risk!

You might think that such a story would have a very predictable plot. Nothing could be less true. Just when the plot seems to be comfortably taking you left, Wodehouse puts in a complication that suddenly causes a u-turn. Then, when you get settled into that direction, he sends you off suddenly at a 45 degree angle. And pretty soon, you are overwhelmed with complications to keep you amusingly occupied with how in the world this can ever be straightened out . . . even though you have a pretty good idea of how things must turn out eventually.

But the complications serve an important purpose beyond keeping up the suspense. They also provide wonderful chances to show the true nature of the characters, and to flesh them out. This I found to be particularly well done in this book. Basically, Wodehouse likes to contrast those who care about others in a sincere way with those who are only concerned with their self-interest. The self-obsessed people unwittingly do themselves in, while the caring people somehow muddle through. The caring people have to also clean up the messes the self-interested ones make.

This book includes two of P.G. Wodehouse's most intimidating and unstoppable older women, Clarence's and Galahad's sister, Lady Hermione, and her friend, Dame Daphne Winkworth, who has her eye on Clarence. The upper class men are, as usual, very unintelligent (except for Galahad), which makes for much of the humor.

I suggest that you use your experience with hearing the narration of this story to think of a story that you would like to read aloud to a child you know. Then do so. Be sure to pick one that you can make very entertaining and which teaches valuable lessons.

See the humor . . . even in the worst circumstances!

Service with a Smile (Unabridged)
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Uncle Fred Returns to Blandings Castle! What Ho!

Great Fun at Blandings Castle

Wodehouse penned another winner

Service with a Smile (Unabridged)
P. G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
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ASIN: B000B5VE68

Customer Reviews:

Uncle Fred Returns to Blandings Castle! What Ho!.......2005-06-30

Pongo Twistleton's Uncle Fred, the Fifth Earl of Ickenham, is dedicated, in his own words, to spreading sweetness and light wherever he goes (others have less complimentary words for what he does). In aid of this objective, he has previously appeared at Blandings Castle in the guise of the noted nerve specialist Sir Roderick Glossop, and been discovered as an impostor. While he remains a favorite of Clarence, the Ninth Earl of Emsworth and the proprietor of Blandings Castle, he is extremely unpopular with Clarence's sister Constance, who actually runs the place.

No Blandings Castle novel is complete, of course, without at least one impostor, sundered hearts that must be reunited, the threat or actuality of the theft of the Empress of Blandings (the Earl of Emsworth's prize Berkshire sow), and an abundance of farcical monkey business. Wodehouse supplies all of these, plus the presence of the two Earls, each one of the great characters in literature, and Alaric, the Duke of Dunstable, an impossibly rude man and the perfect foil for Uncle Fred.

All in all, a marvelously funny book by the greatest master of farce ever.

Great Fun at Blandings Castle.......2004-12-05

Service with a Smile is my second favorite of the P.G. Wodehouse books about the daffy doings at Blandings Castle, and is exceeded only by Pigs Have Wings.

If you have read any of the P.G. Wodehouse books about Blandings Castle, you know that the proprietor, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, is a simple man who simply wants to be left alone to contemplate his prize-winning pig, The Empress of Blandings, who has won the silver prize three years running in the fat pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. But he is beset by sisters who want to organize his life . . . and that of everyone else. The most frequently present of these sisters is Lady Constance Keeble, who is in residence in this book.

Lady Constance is a widow and has her eye on a wealthy American, James Schoonmaker, whose daughter, Myra, has been brought to Blandings Castle by Lady Constance to keep Myra from marrying a curate, a poor but honest man. Lady Constance has no truck with poor people and she's confident that James Schoonmaker would feel the same way.

The castle also contains Clarence's secretary, Lavender Briggs, who desperately wants to start up her own typing bureau but lacks capital; the Duke of Dunstable, who thinks everyone else is potty and wants to save a penny wherever he can; and Clarence's grandson, George, who has a new movie camera from his grandfather. All will play important roles in the developing plot.

The catalyst for this marvelous story is the effervescent Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham. As an old friend of the Schoonmakers, Freddie decides to bring the young people together in holy matrimony. To further this course, Freddie introduces the curate, one Bill Bailey (about whom many song jokes follow), into the castle as a Brazilian business man who has something to do with Brazil nuts.

Freddie's plot is soon foiled though when Dunstable decides to grab the Empress by hook or by crook and Bill Bailey is blackmailed to help. How will the young lovers be brought together?

Ickenham is a less scrupulous version of Galahad Threepwood, Clarence's younger brother, who was such a fixture in the old Pelican Club. He sees fatheaded rich men as being likely sources of capital for poor, but deserving younger people. He also believes in love and soon has two sets of young lovers to sort out. He has a strategic advantage in this plot in that his reputation precedes him and all those in trouble quickly come to seek his counsel. In the process, that allows Freddie to pull the strings almost as well as the fairies do in some of Shakespeare's lightest comedies.

Like all of the best Wodehouse stories, this one positively reeks with humorous names (such as George Cyril Wellbeloved, Clarence's pig man), class humor (fat-headed upper class types being shorn), irony (the simple is exalted over the complex and pretentious) and never-ending humorous confrontations and contretemps.

Save this book for the next time you need cheering up. It's a perfect tonic!

Wodehouse penned another winner.......2002-07-06

P.G. Wodehouse wrote yet another delightful tangled tale in this addition to the Blandings Castle saga. As usual, he weaves a celtic knot of plot in and around Blandings Castle, this time involving Lord Ickenham (a.k.a. Uncle Fred) and his young friend Bill Bailey (who of course comes under another name); Myra Schoonmaker and her father, James Schoonmaker; the Duke of Dunstable and his nephew, Archie Gilpin; Lavender Briggs, Lord Emsworth's new secretary; and the usual Blandings cast including Lord Emsworth, Lady Constance, and Beach. Two love stories interweave as well as once again a plot against Lord Emsworth's thrice-prize-winning pig, Empress of Blandings. Great fun!

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Brilliant
The First From Blandings Castle
The Company You Keep
Blandings Castle is never bland nor dull!
All the intrigue of Sherlock Holmes...minus the dead bodies

Something Fresh (Unabridged)
P. G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
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ASIN: B000LMPO6C

Book Description

In a moment of absentmindedness, Lord Emsworth helps himself to a priceless relic, leaving its owner to offer a thousand pounds for its return. Pretty soon, Blandings is a madhouse with people tripping over one another to claim the prize.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant.......2006-07-14

Very funny book. One of the Wodehouse series I have truly and thoroughly enjoyed.

It's worth it for that one scene at night with Emsworth wandering with a revolver and the "Efficient Baxter" stumbling into some surprises.

I read that portion and had tears running down my cheeks and an aching belly for the next two weeks from laughing so hard! The visualisation of that scene isn't hard to do, since Wodehouse is an amazing artist with words.... and it's rewarding.

Too funny!

You won't regret it!

The First From Blandings Castle.......2006-02-19

This book was first published as "Something New" in the U.S. on September 3rd, 1915 by D. Appleton and Company, and then in the U.K. on September 16th, 1915 by Methuen & Co., and this is the first of the Blandings Castle stories. As far as Wodehouse stories go this is not his best, but it does introduce characters which appear in many of his later works.

The main two characters of the story are Ashe Marson, a writer of cheap detective novels, and Joan Valentine, a woman who lives in his apartment building who laughs at his morning exercises which results in their meeting. Neither of them is satisfied with what they are doing in life, and both are in the need for money.

The story moves to different characters from time to time, in typical Wodehouse fashion. Important characters include Aline Peters, Jane's friend who is engaged to Frederick Threepwood, who is the son of the Earl of Emsworth who is the lord of Blandings Castle, and is a very absent minded individual. Jane's father is J. Preston Peters, an American business man who collects scarabs and suffers from digestion problems.

Other characters included are Baxter, the Earl's secretary, and R. Jones, a less than honest man whom Frederick has hired to recover love letters he wrote to an actress (Joan Valentine) in the past which might contain evidence for a breach of promises suit. There are also the many guests and servants of Blandings Castle.

It would be impossible to cover all the twists in a Wodehouse plot, but many of his usual devices are here. Characters pretending to be someone they are not, misunderstandings galore, and love, of course. Some of the scenes which I liked the best included Baxter's attempts to catch someone trying to steal the Scarab, and the servant scenes where the hierarchy of servants comes into play. I have yet to read a Wodehouse book which wasn't enjoyable, and this one is no exception. However, there are many of his stories which are better than this one.

This edition is part of "The Collector's Wodehouse" series being published by The Overlook Press in the U.S. (in the U.K. it is "The Everyman's Wodehouse" series being published by Everyman's Library).

The Company You Keep.......2005-02-05

In P.G. Wodehouse (Thames and Hudson Literary Lives Series), James Connolly offers this advice: "Relax and reread Wodehouse; he's the boy to restore a sense of proportion." Absolutely good advice. I find rereading Wodehouse is more enjoyable than most first reads of other authors, and he's quite easy to reread, even if you don't intend to, because his stories appear in various collections and his novels were often published under various titles.

Something Fresh, officially the first book in the Blandings Castle saga, was published as "Something New" as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post in 1915, and then as a book with the same title in an American edition. "Something Fresh" is a slightly altered British edition of that book. Ashe Marson, the unknown author of the hard-boiled Gridley Quayle, Investigator series of paperback pulps, answers an ad: "WANTED--Young Man of Good Appearance, who is poor and reckless, to undertake delicate and dangerous enterprise. Good pay for the right man." Poor and reckless is a formula in Wodehouse for a good-hearted, down on his luck guy, about to be smiled upon by a beneficent Providence. It's a carry-over from his work in musical comedy and as a struggling writer, but he is one of the few authors who make his leading characters writers, and one of the very few who throws them any of the good parts.

This book is a double bonus, with not only Ashe, but a female writer, Joan Valentine, who knows even more of the hard-bitten life of the streets, and is therefore even poorer and more reckless, as a stellar second in the personnel. Throw in all sorts of millionaires and mix-ups, maids and butlers, a loveable, old, potty Earl, and the beginning of the crime wave at Blandings, and you have the makings of either a rollicking musical comedy or a long series of delightful novels. With Wodehouse it was both. He alternated between the two worlds and if Something Fresh were a film or a musical, Ashe and Joan would no doubt break into song and start dancing about the parlour, as do Gracie Allen, George Burns and Fred Astaire in the Gershwin Brothers' film adaption of Wodehouse's novel, A Damsel in Distress. Why four stars? You can't give everything five, and in my view, as good as Something Fresh is, some of the later Wodehouse novels (such as the Jeeves, Mulliner and Drones Stories) are even better.

Blandings Castle is never bland nor dull!.......2002-10-24

This is the first Blandings Castle novel, and the first novel in what we now think as the true P.G. Wodehouse style. For the first time, the interplay between absent-minded peers, quick-to-anger relatives and friends, and those amazing good-natured yet good-for-nothing younger sons come together in a comic dance of quick assumptions, identity switches, flirts with embarrassment, and, oh yes, love.

If Wodehouse wasn't so widely admired by the critics, I would have to claim him as a guilty pleasure. Although I can quote style and form with the best of them, the real truth is that I read Wodehouse because he amuses. In Wodehouse's hands, the sly wink equals the over-the-top exaggeration, and only one will work in the place that he puts it.

I tried to slow my reading speed down on this book, to gain an understanding of the flow and the way the language worked. I failed miserably--before I realized it, I was caught up once again in the action of the story and I wasn't observing but enjoying. I'm thinking that to truly study a novel, I am going to have to force myself to retype it.

All the intrigue of Sherlock Holmes...minus the dead bodies.......2002-10-23

If your acquaintance with the wonderful world of Wodehouse begins and ends with Jeeves and that bit of a thick-o, Bertram Wilburforce W. then it's high time you came to Blandings Castle to meet Lord Emsworth and his idiot son Freddie,what?And "something fresh" is exactly where you'd want to start.Structured like a detective or spy novel and woven ever so tightly,it leaves you wondering....could all this bally intrigue be about something so incredibly silly? (and I'm far and away from meaning silly as an insult).Lighthearted and romantic without ever being lightweight, beautifully written and zanily paced, you'll want to spend a holiday as a guest at Blandings castle as soon as possible.Go ahead,satisfy your anglophilic urges...read some Wodehouse!

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