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

The Inimitable Jeeves

Name: The Inimitable Jeeves
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
ISBN: 9780393339802

by P. G. Wodehouse

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Overview

“To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language.”—Ben Schott

Follow the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves, in this stunning new edition of one of the greatest comic short story collections in the English language. This classic collection of linked stories feature some of the funniest episodes in the life of Bertie Wooster, gentleman, and Jeeves, his gentleman’s gentleman—in which Bertie's terrifying Aunt Agatha stalks the pages, seeking whom she may devour, while Bertie’s friend Bingo Little falls in love with seven different girls in succession (he marries the last, bestselling romantic novelist Rosie M. Banks). And Bertie, with Jeeves’s help, just evades the clutches of the terrifying Honoria Glossop. At its heart is one of Wodehouse’s most delicious stories and a comic masterpiece, "The Great Sermon Handicap."

About the Author, P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse was born in England in 1881 and in 1955 became an American citizen. He published more than ninety books and had a successful career writing lyrics and musicals in collaboration with Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton, and Cole Porter, among others.

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

The New Yorker

Wodehouse is the funniest writer—that is, the most resourceful and unflagging deliverer of fun—that the human race, a glum crowd, has yet produced.

Publishers Weekly

Martin Jarvis brings the madcap world of Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet Jeeves to life with canny comedic timing and wildly varied voices that capture the essence of each of the many characters. In P.G. Wodehouse's classic stories about a gentleman and his gentleman's gentleman, we follow the hapless but lovable Bertie from one misadventure to the next-accidental engagements, calamitous lunches with the terrifying Aunt Agatha, clashes with noted nerve specialists and run-ins with bizarre political parties-each imbroglio neatly put right in the end by the faithful Jeeves. Jarvis perfectly conveys the spirit and sheer joy of these beloved stories in an audio book that will delight both Wodehouse fanatics and newcomers to the author's work. An Overlook hardcover.(Apr.)

Library Journal

It's getting harder and harder to find mediocre recordings of Wodehouse's "Jeeves" novels, and this new one merely adds to what is already an embarrassment of riches. First published in 1923, this book contains ten loosely connected stories that retain their vigor and hilarity nearly 80 years later. Among the wonderful characters introduced are Bertie's perpetually love-struck pal, Bingo Little, and the latter's eventual bride, Rosie M. Banks, author of such sentimental slops as A Red, Red Summer Rose. Best of all, however, are "The Great Sermon Handicap" and "The Purity of the Turf"--unforgettable tales about unlikely gambling competitions, in which Jeeves--as always--comes out on top. Frederick Davidson's reading of Wodehouse is getting even better--if that's possible--making any library's purchase of this audiobook as near a "cert" as a flutter on the Rev. Heppenstall's sermon on "Brotherly Love."--Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.