Everyman The Girl in Blue Вудхаус Пелам Гренвилл

A P.G. Wodehouse novel • Young Jerry West has a few problems. His uncle Crispin is broke and employs a butler who isn’t all he seems. His other uncle Willoughby is rich but won’t hand over any of his inheritance. And to cap it all, although already engaged, Jerry has just fallen in love with the wonderful Jane Hunnicutt, whom he’s just met on jury service. But she’s an heiress, and that’s a problem too – because even if he can extricate himself from his grasping fiancée Jerry can’t be a gold-digger • Enter "The Girl in Blue" – a Gainsborough miniature which someone has stolen from Uncle Willoughby. Jerry sets out on a mission to find her – and somehow hilariously in the process everything comes right

The Adventures of Sally is a transatlantic comedy set in worlds Wodehouse knew well: American theatres, English country houses, and the theatrical boarding-houses where young men and women dream of finding fame and fortune. Coming into a modest inheritance, one of these young women, Sally, is able to leave her boarding-house at last, and looks forward to a quiet life in a small apartment. Instead, she finds herself swept up in a series of adventures with her ambitious brother and her playwright fiance, along with an accident-prone, dog-loving Englishman she meets on a French beach and his supercilious cousin, who pursue her across the Atlantic. While losing most of her inheritance backing a play, she sheds the unsatisfactory fiance, rejects the supercilious cousin, falls in love with the accident-prone Englishman, and finds happiness in a kennel on Long Island

The Earl of Marshmoreton's lively daughter – the damsel of the title – thinks she is in love with one Geoffrey Raymond, but a cheerful American song-writer called George Bevan knows better. After one meeting with her, when she climbs into his passing cab to escape from her pompous brother in London, George is dazzled. He pursues her to the family seat in Hampshire and does battle for her hand with her brother, their snobbish aunt and a father who will do anything for a quiet life. Love triumphs in the end with the unwitting help of a sporting butler, and a page boy with golden curls and no conscience, making this one of Wodehouse's most charming early comedies

The nearest Wodehouse ever came to a serious story, The Coming of Bill is a fascinating blend of social comment and light comedy. It concerns the offspring of Ruth, a spoilt heiress, and Kirk, an impecunious artist of perfect physique, brought together by Ruth’s aunt, a believer in eugenics. The young couple are eventually successful in retrieving their child and their marriage from the influence of the overbearing Mrs Porter, but only after a series of comic mishaps in a book which features a galaxy of vintage Wodehouse characters, including the bossy aunt, a tetchy millionaire, a good-natured ex-boxer and an orotund English butler

A classic musical comedy plot turned into a novel, The Prince and Betty is the story of a man who gives up everything for his girl. Fortunately, she chances to be the stepdaughter of a millionaire • John Maude and Betty Silver are in love, but when John turns out to be heir to the principality of Mervo, a small Mediterranean island not a thousand miles from Monte Carlo, he finds himself ensnared in the establishment of a new casino, much to his beloved's high-minded disgust. She leaves him and takes a job with an American family in London; he abandons his post to follow her • Eventually their misunderstandings are disentangled, and in the process of telling their story, published early in his career, Wodehouse constructs the critique of Europe versus America, privilege versus enterprise, decadence versus adventure, which was to underpin many of his later tales

Wodehouse is at his most sparkling in this collection of stories concering members of the Drones Club. Pongo Twistleton and Freddie Widgeon may be small of brain and short of cash but they are always good for ingenious adventures, especially when it comes to falling in love with the wrong girl or cooking up hopeless schemes to make money. They and their contemporaries populate a series of vignettes in which the plot-twists keep you on your toes while the jokes keep on coming

Who but P.G. Wodehouse could have extraced high comedy from the most noble and ancient game of golf? And who else could have combined this comedy with a real appreciation of the game, drawn from personal experience? Wodehouse's brilliant but humane brand of humour is perfectly suited to these stories of love, rivalry, revenge and fulfilment on the links. While the oldest member sits inside the clubhouse quoting Marcus Aurelius on patience and wisdom, outside on the green the strongest human passions burn. All human life is here, from Sandy McHoots, the cocky professional, to shy Ramsden Waters, whose only consolation in life is golf. Even golf-haters will not be able to resist stories which perfectly combine physical farce and verbal wit with a gallery of unforgettable characters

Bingo Little, husband of romantic novelist Rosie M. Banks, escapes from the watchful eye of his wife with hazardous results. Two men and a policeman vie for paternity of the ugliest baby. Ukridge finds a suit but loses the girl, and Anselm Mulliner preaches the sermon of his life. In this wonderful collection of nine stories, Wodehouse puts old friends through their paces and finds them lively as ever

Want to know how to lose a golf tournament, a good job or a Fat Uncles sweepstake? Destroy the wrong Old Master painting in the small hours? Annoy two very large professional boxers who are supposed to be making you money? Then look no further: P. G. Wodehouse has all the answers in this vintage collection of stories. He can even tell you how to marry the daughter of a bishop. And Bertie Wooster, Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia, Jeeves and Oofy Prosser, Bingo Little, Rosie M. Banks, Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member are all on hand to help

In this comic novel - dedicated to Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in the stage version - Jimmy Pitt, man-about-town and former newspaper hound, takes a bet that he cannot commit burglary. He finds breaking and entering easy enough, but then discovers that he has forced his way into the home of a tough New York policeman. Naturally, Captain McEachern has a beautiful daughter and problems of his own. The complications which ensue from their meeting, involving a rich cast of Wodehousean characters from both sides of the Atlantic, create one of his most amusing and light-hearted early novels

The uncle of the title is a mysterious stranger who arrives at Beckford College and turns out to be younger than his nephew, already a prefect at the school. Thus the scene is set for comic confusion and misunderstanding. But the plot is the least interesting part of this charming early book which turns more impressively on a series of sporting events which Wodehouse describes with the perception and panache of an afficionado. An amusing variation on the traditional school story in which the youthful uncle foreshadows both Psmith and Ukridge

«Положитесь на Псмита» – полный озорного юмора роман П.Г. Вудхауса о приключениях великосветского бездельника, периодически пытающегося заняться чем-нибудь полезным для общества. На сей раз Псмит выступает в совершенно неожиданной даже для себя роли – он становится частным детективом и расследует поразительно нелепое дело о краже бесценного ожерелья леди Констанции Кибл. Под подозрением – все, даже… сам Псмит! • Книга на английском языке • It all starts with an umbrella, the best to be found in the Drones Club. From such an innocent beginning Wodehouse weaves a comic tale of suspense and romance involving one of his most distinctive early heroes, Ronald Eustace Psmith, monocled wit and devil-may-care boulevardier. Unusually for Wodehouse, this is not only a light comedy but also an adventure story in which crime and even gun-play drive the plot