Short Story Collections (Single Author), English, Scottish, & Welsh Fiction, Humorous Fiction, Character Types - Fiction

Jeeves and the Mating Season

Name: Jeeves and the Mating Season
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
ISBN: 9781572703193

by P. G. Wodehouse

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Overview

Bertie Wooster's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle must spend two weeks in jail for illegal fountain wading. Worse, Gussie's fiancee Madeline, a volatile young woman who turns to Bertie when Gussie upsets her, will probably not take the news very well. Bertie's idea of impersonating Gussie triggers an array of comic complications in this witty romp. As always, Jeeves, who dons his own disguise, comes through to save the day.

About the Author, P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Comic timing would seem less of the essence in literature until you read the English wit of P. G. Wodehouse, who shows just how a well-placed comment or properly inflected phrase can create a response that is often all too rare during a reading session: A loud, hearty laugh.

Biography

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in 1881 in Guildford, the son of a civil servant, and educated at Dulwich College. He spent a brief period working for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank before abandoning finance for writing, earning a living by journalism and selling stories to magazines.

An enormously popular and prolific writer, he produced about 100 books. In Jeeves, the ever resourceful "gentleman's personal gentleman", and the good-hearted young blunderer Bertie Wooster, he created two of the best known and best loved characters in twentieth century literature. Their exploits, first collected in Carry On, Jeeves, were chronicled in fourteen books, and have been repeatedly adapted for television, radio and the stage. Wodehouse also created many other comic figures, notably Lord Emsworth, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, Psmith and the numerous members of the Drones Club. He was part-author and writer of fifteen straight plays and 250 lyrics for some 30 musical comedies. The Times hailed him as a "comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce."

P. G. Wodehouse said, "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn ...."

Wodehouse married in 1914 and took American citizenship in 1955. He was created a Knight of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. In a BBC interview he said that he had no ambitions left now that he had been knighted and there was a waxwork of him in Madame Tussaud's. He died on St. Valentine's Day, 1975, at the age of ninety-three.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Books LTD.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Wodehouse and Cecil are a terrific pair. Cecil's narration is marvelous, as he perfectly evokes the character of Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster: good-natured, educated, articulate, but often befuddled as he finds himself drawn into harebrained schemes. Fortunately, he can rely on the sensible advice of his butler, Jeeves, to "pull him out of the soup," as Bertie would say. Cecil's lively performance highlights the humor of Wodehouse's words, and he creates distinctive voices for each character, which is an admirable accomplishment, considering nearly all of them are upper-crust British men. He is also faithful to directions in the text. Whether it's depressed Catsmeat saying "hello" in a "hollow voice that sounded as if it came from the tomb," or Madeline simpering in her "syrupy" voice, Cecil's narration is on target. The comical story is pure Wodehouse. In an attempt to help various pals with their romantic difficulties, Bertie finds himself at Deverill Hall pretending to be insipid acquaintance Gussie; frantically sneaks into Madeline's house to snatch an incriminating telegram before she reads it; and faces the dire prospect of reciting Winnie the Pooh poems to a rough-and-tumble audience at a village concert. Of course, with Jeeves's sage council, all is put right in the end, and four loving couples are reunited, while the relieved Bertie remains happily unattached. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.