P.G. Wodehouse

These marvellous stories introduce us to Jeeves, whose first ever duty is to cure Bertie’s raging hangover (‘If you would drink this, sir… it is a little preparation of my own invention. It is the Worcester Sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it nutritious. The red pepper gives it its bite. Gentlemen have told me they have found it extremely invigorating after a late evening.’) And from that moment, one of the funniest, sharpest and most touching partnerships in English literature never looks back…

The beefy ‘Stilton’ Cheesewright has drawn Bertie Wooster as red-hot favourite in the Drones club annual darts tournament – which is lucky for Bertie because otherwise Stilton would have beaten him to a pulp and buttered the lawn with him. Stilton does not like men who he thinks are trifling with his fiancée’s affections. Meanwhile Bertie has committed a more heinous offence by growing a moustache, and Jeeves strongly disapproves – which is unfortunate, because Jeeves’s feudal spirit is desperately needed. Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia is trying to sell her magazine Milady’s Boudoir to the Trotter Empire and still keep her amazing chef Anatole out of Lady Trotter’s clutches. And Bertie? Bertie simply has to try to keep his moustache and survive to the end of the novel.

A collection of the finest and funniest words from the finest funniest writer the past century ever knew. Published for the millennium and to mark the 25th anniversary of his death, this is the first major selection of the whole of P.G. Wodehouse's work to have been published for a generation, and it includes a generous selection of previously unpublished work. We all know Jeeves and Wooster, but what is the best Jeeves story? What is your favourite story to feature Lord Emsworth and his unique pig, the Empress Blandings? And how many readers of Wodehouse know the best of Ukridge, the Oldest Member, the Hollwood stories? This bumper anthology of stories, novel-extracts, working drafts, articles, letters and poems gives a fresh angle on the twentieth century's greatest humorist. There are favourites aplenty, but this selection provides the best overall celebration of side-splitting humour and sheer good nature available in the pages of any book. The anthology has been compiled with enthusiastic support from the various P.G. Wodehouse societies around the world.

A P.G. Wodehouse collection Meet the Young Men in Spats — all members of the Drones Club, all crossed in love and all busy betting their sometimes nonexistent fortunes on unlikely outcomes — that's when they're not recovering from driving their sports cars through rather than round Marble Arch. These stories are the essence of innocent fun. In them you'll encounter some of Wodehouse's favorite characters — including, for the first time, his future hero Uncle Fred. The collection is widely regarded as one of Wodehouse's best and includes one of his own favorites, The Amazing Hat Mystery.

Bertie Wooster has been overdoing metropolitan life a bit, and the doctor orders fresh air in the depths of the country. But after moving with Jeeves to his cottage at Maiden Eggesford, Bertie soon finds himself surrounded by aunts – not only his redoubtable Aunt Dahlia but an aunt of Jeeves’s too. Add a hyper-sensitive racehorse, a very important cat and a decidedly bossy fiancée – and all the ingredients are present for a plot in which aunts can exert their terrible authority. But Jeeves, of course, can cope with everything – even aunts, and even the country.

The ivied walls of Blandings Castle have seldom glowed as sunnily as in these wonderful stories — but there are snakes in the rolling parkland ready to nip Clarence, the absent-minded Ninth Earl of Emsworth, when he least expects it. For a start the Empress of Blandings, in the running for her first prize in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show, is off her food ­- and can only be coaxed back to the trough by a call in her own language. Then there is the feud with Head Gardener McAllister, aided by Clarence’s sister, the terrifying Lady Constance, and the horrible prospect of the summer fête — twin problems solved by the arrival of a delightfully rebellious little girl from London. But first of all there is the vexed matter of the custody of the pumpkin. Skipping an ocean and a continent, Wodehouse also treats us to some unputdownable stories of excess from the monstrous Golden Age of Hollywood.

The Oldest Member knows everything that has ever happened on the golf course – and a great deal more besides. Take the story of Cuthbert, for instance. He’s helplessly in love with Adeline, but what use are his holes in one when she’s in thrall to Culture and prefers rising young writers to winners of the French Open? But enter a Great Russian Novelist with a strange passion, and Cuthbert’s prospects are transformed. Then look at what happens to young Mitchell Holmes, who misses short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows. His career seems on the skids – but can golf redeem it? The kindly but shrewd gaze of the Oldest Member picks out some of the funniest stories Wodehouse ever wrote.

When Bertie Wooster goes to Totleigh Towers to pour oil on the troubled waters of a lovers' breach between Madeline Bassett and Gussie Fink-Nottle, he isn’t expecting to see Aunt Dahlia there – nor to be instructed by her to steal some silver. But purloining the antique cow creamer from under the baleful nose of Sir Watkyn Bassett is the least of Bertie’s tasks. He has to restore true love to both Madeline and Gussie and to the Revd Stinker Pinker and Stiffy Byng – and confound the insane ambitions of would-be Dictator Roderick Spode and his Black Shorts. It’s a situation that only Jeeves can unravel…

Jeeves is on holiday in Herne Bay, and while he’s away the world caves in on Bertie Wooster. For a start, he’s astonished to read in The Times of his engagement to the mercurial Bobbie Wickham. Then at Brinkley Court, his Aunt Dahlia’s establishment, he finds his awful former head master in attendance ready to award the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. And finally the Brinkley butler turns out for reasons of his own to be Bertie’s nemesis in disguise, the brain surgeon Sir Roderick Glossop. With all occasions informing against him, Bertie has to hightail it to Herne Bay to liberate Jeeves from his shrimping net. And after that, the fun really starts.

Trapped in rural Steeple Bumpleigh, a man less stalwart than Bertie Wooster would probably give way at the knees. For among those present were Florence Craye, to whom Bertie had once been engaged and her new fiancé ‘Stilton’ Cheesewright, who sees Bertie as a snake in the grass. And that biggest blot on the landscape, Edwin the Boy Scout, who is busy doing acts of kindness out of sheer malevolence. All Bertie’s forebodings are fully justified. For in his efforts to oil the wheels of commerce, promote the course of true love and avoid the consequences of a vendetta, he becomes the prey of all and sundry. In fact only Jeeves can save him…

Lady Constance Keeble, sister of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle, has both an imperious manner and a valuable diamond necklace. The precarious peace of Blandings is shattered when her necklace becomes the object of dark plottings, for within the castle lurk some well-connected jewel thieves – among them the Honourable Freddie Threepwood, Lord Emsworth’s younger son, who wants the reward money to set up a bookmaking business. Psmith, the elegant socialist, is also after it for his newly married chum Mike. And on patrol with the impossible task of bringing management to Blandings is the Efficient Baxter, whose strivings for order lead to a memorable encounter with the castle flowerpots. Will peace ever return to Blandings Castle...?

At Deverill Hall, an idyllic Tudor manor in the picture-perfect village of King's Deverill, impostors are in the air. The prime example is man-about-town Bertie Wooster, doing a good turn to Gussie Fink-Nottle by impersonating him while he enjoys fourteen days away from society after being caught taking an unscheduled dip in the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Bertie is of course one of nature’s gentlemen, but the stakes are high: if all is revealed, there’s a danger that Gussie’s simpering fiancée Madeline may turn her wide eyes on Bertie instead. It’s a brilliant plan – until Gussie himself turns up, imitating Bertram Wooster. After that, only the massive brain of Jeeves (himself in disguise) can set things right.

In the Angler’s Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse’s greatest raconteurs. Mr Mulliner, his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid, has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: In particular there’s Wilfred, inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream and Snow of the Mountain Lotion, who lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance. Its explosive effects on a shy young curate and then the higher clergy is gravely revealed. And there’s his cousin James, the detective-story writer, who has inherited a cottage more haunted than anything in his own imagination. And stuttering George the crossword whizz. And Isadore Zinzinheimer, head of the Bigger, Better & Brighter Motion Picture Company. Tall tales all – but among Wodehouse’s best.

In the bar-parlour of the Angler’s Rest, Mr Mulliner tells his amazing tales, which hold the assembled company of Pints of Stout and Whiskies and Splash in the palm of his expressive hand. Here you can discover what happened to The Man Who Gave Up Smoking, share a frisson when the butler delivers Something Squishy on a silver salver (‘your serpent, Sir’, said the voice of Simmons) ­– and experience the dreadful Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court. Throughout the Mulliner clan remains resourcefully in command in the most outlandish situations.

Just as Bertie Wooster is a member of the Drones Club, Jeeves has a club of his own, the Junior Ganymede, exclusively for butlers and gentlemen’s gentlemen. In its inner sanctum is kept the Book of Revelations, where the less than perfect habits of their employers are lovingly recorded. The book is, of course, pure dynamite. So what happens when it disappears into potentially hostile hands? Tossed about in the resulting whirlwind you’ll find lots of Wodehouse’s favourite characters – and a welcome return to Market Snodsbury, in the middle of one of the most chaotic elections of modern times.

A private detective who can make the guilty confess simply by smiling at them. An artist so intimidated by his morally impeccable cat that he feels compelled to wear formal attire at dinner. A devotee of Proust whose life is turned upside down when he inadvertently subscribes to a correspondence course on How to Acquire Complete Self-Confidence and an Iron Will. These are just a few of the many members of the eccentric Mulliner clan whose lives and exploits are laid before the regulars of the Angler’s Rest by that doyen of raconteurs, Mr Mulliner, in a series of tall stories where lunacy and comic exuberance reign supreme.

Can the Empress of Blandings win the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Show for the third year running? Galahad Threepwood, Beach the butler and others have put their shirt on this, and for Lord Emsworth it will be paradise on earth. But a substantial obstacle lurks in the way: Queen of Matchingham, the new sow of Sir Gregory Parsloe Bart. Galahad knows this pretender to the crown must be pignapped. But can the Empress in turn avoid a similar fate? In this classic Blandings novel, pigs rise above their bulk to vanish and reappear in the most unlikely places, while young lovers are crossed and recrossed in every room in Blandings Castle.

Gussie Fink-Nottle’s knowledge of the common newt is unparalleled. Drop him in a pond of newts and his behaviour will be exemplary, but introduce him to a girl and watch him turn pink, yammer, and suddenly stampede for great open spaces. Even with Madeline Bassett, who feels that the stars are God’s daisy chain, his tongue is tied in reef-knots. And his chum Tuppy Glossop isn’t getting on much better with Madeline’s delectable friend Angela. With so many broken hearts lying about him, Bertie Wooster can’t sit idly by. The happiness of a pal – two pals, in fact – is at stake. But somehow Bertie’s best-laid plans land everyone in the soup, and so it’s just as well that Jeeves is ever at hand to apply his bulging brains to the problems of young love.

As a peer of the realm, Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has an occasional duty to leave the Empress of Blandings, surely the most considerable pig in the whole world, and travel to London for the opening of parliament. It comes hard to him, for he has a proper sense of the priorities in life, which rate pigs and flowerbeds higher than politicians. But no sooner has he returned to Blandings than his real problems begin: the dastardly Duke of Dunstable is out to steal the Empress. His sister Lady Constance has inflicted on him a particularly nasty new secretary. And the Church Lads' Brigade are camped all over his lawns. Thank God for the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, whose own particularly devious brand of sweetness and light aims to banish blackmailers and pig-stealers and restore true love all over the castle grounds.

Bertie Wooster looks pretty stylish in his new Tyrolean hat – or so he thinks: others, notably Jeeves, disagree. But when Bertie embarks on an errand of mercy to Totleigh Towers, things get quickly out of control and he’s going to need all the help Jeeves can provide. There are good eggs present, such as Gussie Fink-Nottle and the Rev. ‘Stinker’ Pinker. But there also is Sir Watkyn Bassett J.P., enemy of all the Woosters hold dear, to say nothing of his daughter Madeline and Roderick Spode, now raised to the peerage. And Major Brabazon Plank, the peppery explorer, who wants to lay Bertie out cold. Thank goodness for the intervention of Chief Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard – but is this gentleman all he seems?

»Thank You, Jeeves» is the first novel to feature the incomparable valet Jeeves and his hapless charge Bertie Wooster – and you’ve hardly started to turn the pages when he resigns over Bertie’s dedicated but somewhat untuneful playing of the banjo. In high dudgeon, Bertie disappears to the country as a guest of his chum Chuffy – only to find his peace shattered by the arrival of his ex-fiancée Pauline Stoker, her formidable father and the eminent loony-doctor Sir Roderick Glossop. When Chuffy falls in love with Pauline and Bertie seems to be caught in flagrante, a situation boils up which only Jeeves (whether employed or not) can simmer down…

The uncle in question is Frederick Altamount Cornwallis, Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, an old boy of such a sunny and youthful nature that explosions of sweetness and light detonate all around him (in the course, it must be said, of a plot that involves blackmail, impersonation, knock-out drops, stealing, arrests and potential jewel-smuggling). This is Wodehouse at his very best, with sundered lovers, explorers, broke publishers and irascible aristocrats all eventually yielding to the magic, ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous touch of Uncle Fred. As Richard Usborne writes, ‘a brilliantly sustained rattle of word-perfect dialogue and narrative topping a very complicated and well-controlled plot’.

An outstanding collection of Jeeves stories, every one a winner, in which Jeeves endeavours to give satisfaction: By saving a grumpy cabinet minister from being marooned and attacked by a swan – in the process saving Bertie Wooster from his impending doom... By rescuing Bingo Little and Tuppy Glossop from the soup (twice each)... By arranging rather too many performances of the song ‘Sonny Boy’ to a not very appreciative audience... And by a variety of other sparkling stratagems that should reduce you to helpless laughter.

Captain Biggar, big-game hunter and all round tough guy, should make short work of the two bookies who have absconded with his winnings after a freak double made him a fortune. But on this occasion Honest Patch Perkins and his clerk are not as they seem. In fact they’re not bookies at all, but the impoverished Bill Belfry, Ninth Earl of Rowcester and his temporary butler, Jeeves. Bertie Wooster has gone away to a special school teaching the aristocracy to fend for itself ‘in case the social revolution sets in with even greater severity’. But Jeeves will prove just as resourceful without his young master, and brilliant brainwork may yet square the impossible circle for all concerned.