The other day, Spacebar mentioned that she had recently discovered a Wodehouse novel that she hadn't read before: Summer Moonshine. This got me thinking about my own last encounter with the master. A few years ago, a previously unpublished manuscript was found - in New York, I think - and was released as A Prince for Hire. When I read it, I wasn't surprised it hadn't been published before - it was far from the polished product Wodehouse usually released. Indeed, had it been published under another person's name, it might have just passed off as a pastiche.
I think I was thirteen years old when I first started reading Wodehouse's books. I went through the list like an Assyrian. I only started keeping a record of the books I read months later, and so now as I go through it, I find no mention of The Code of the Woosters, or The Girl on the Boat, both of which I distinctly remember even to this day.
But of course one never needs much of an excuse to whiz through a Wodehouse. The local library has a small collection of classic editions and more recent paperbacks, and today I picked up - entirely serendipitously - My Man Jeeves. This, the blurb tells me, are early versions of stories that became famous in other collections. I've never seen this book before, and I desperately hope it won't turn out to be a dud like A Prince for Hire.
But of course one never needs much of an excuse to whiz through a Wodehouse. The local library has a small collection of classic editions and more recent paperbacks, and today I picked up - entirely serendipitously - My Man Jeeves. This, the blurb tells me, are early versions of stories that became famous in other collections. I've never seen this book before, and I desperately hope it won't turn out to be a dud like A Prince for Hire.
4 comments:
I've never read a single Wodehouse novel .. can you believe? :-I
But it probably will turn out to be a dud. This Summer Moonshine is turning out to be pretty mixed, but generally fun.
Paridhi: time to remedy that! Summer Lightning, maybe?
SB: You're right - underwhelming. It has a few Reggie Pepper stories, a somewhat smarter and duller earlier version of Bertie. The Wooster stories are works in progress, clearly.
Groan! Yet another load of Ayezhuns mooning over Wodehouse. Mind, GCHQ have a keen eye set on you lot
Ian F
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