Everyman The Girl on the Boat Вудхаус Пелам Гренвилл

This charming novel is one of Wodehouse’s best late works. The vintage plot concerns a Gainsborough miniature, a mouldering country house, an overweight solicitor, a fortune-hunter, a butler who isn’t a butler, an American corporate lawyer and his kleptomaniac sister; but the heart of the story – in every sense –concerns Jerry West and his determined pursuit of air hostess Jane Hunnicutt. When Jane unexpectedly becomes a millionairess, Jerry despairs of wooing her, but the sun never goes behind a cloud for long in Wodehouse: Jerry gets his Jane in the end, but only after a series of trials which raise the comic stakes to the author’s highest level

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Lord Emsworth’s delectable solitude at Blandings Castle is shattered by the arrival from America of his bossy sister, Connie, soon followed by the scheming Duke of Dunstable and the assorted imposters who are never far from Blandings, trouble is bound to follow – the sort of trouble which, in a Wodehouse novel, involves loony doctors, stolen paintings, young lovers, match-making dowagers and baffled butlers. Beset on all sides by the forces of evil, Lord Emsworth calls for help from his brother, Galahad Threepwood, the Pelican of the title. Gally duly engineers a happy ending for all the good characters, including the lovers, drives the villains out of Blandings, and leaves Lord Emsworth once again in peaceful occupation of his home. An ingeniously plotted comedy from the master of light fiction

With the Duke of Dunstable trying to steal his pig to sell to Lord Tilbury, mischievous Church Lads camping in his park, his sister Constance bossing him unmercifully, and Lavender Briggs, his secretary, making life miserable, Lord Emsworth has little time to concentrate on the invasion of Blandings Castle by yet another imposter. But Bill Bailey, aka Cuthbert Meriwether, has inveigled himself into the castle to be with his beloved, Myra Schoonmaker, who is staying there under the eagle eye of Lady Constance, and Lady Constance is determined to thwart him. In the end virtue conquers vice: the lovers are united, Dunstable defeated and Tilbury trounced, but only through the brilliant plotting of Frederick, Earl of Ickenham. Everyone is happy who deserves to be, none more so than Lord Emsworth who at one fell swoop is freed from the tyranny of a duke, a secretary and a sister

Do Butlers Burgle Banks? features the hitherto fortunate owner of Bond’s Bank, who finds himself in a spot of trouble so serious that he wants someone to burgle the bank before the trustees inspect it. Fortunately for him, Horace Appleby, currently posing as his butler, is on hand to oblige. For Horace is, in fact, not a butler at all but the best sort of gangster, prudently concealing himself in an English country house while hiding from his rivals. Looking for peace and safety, Horace is to discover before long that the hot-spots of Chicago are a whole lot more restful than the English countryside. This is the lightest of light comedies, a Wodehousean souffle from his later years

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

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