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Week-End Wodehouse (Pimlico)
by P.G. Wodehouse (Introduction: Hilaire Belloc)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Random House UK (1991-08-01)
ISBN: 0712650342
EAN: 9780712650342
Dewy Decimal #: 823.912
Paperback: 430 pages
Release Date: 1992-08-27
SKU: MWB210359
Condition: Very Good
Comments: 0712650342 This 2001 paperback evidences gentle use; it is free of markings and the pages are clean. Its cover shows only minor shelf wear; the spine is faintly creased and slightly curved. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
This is a collection from P.G. Wodehouse including Drones Club tales, Mr. Mulliner stories, and stories of Jeeves, Lord Emsworth, and Ukridge. The selection also features extracts from Wodehouse's novels and non-fiction writings.
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Customer Reviews
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Plum Crazy
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-12-31
For those who can't see the cover of Week-End Wodehouse (which is everyone, since Amazon doesn't have a picture of it), I'll describe it. It's a replica of the 1939 book with the same title, featuring a color sketch by Kerr. Inside, it's off the mark with an introduction by Hilaire Belloc, and a contents page listing some forty pieces. This is very misleading however, as some of the "pieces" are less than a page, so there's a second contents list which breaks down as follows: Drones Club Stories; Mr. Mulliner Stories; Jeeves Stories; Lord Emsworth Stories (Blandings Castle); Ukridge Stories; The Oldest Member Stories (Golf Stories); Extracts from Novels; and Miscellaneous.
There are two sorts of readers who will love this book: those absolutely new to Wodehouse; and those who have read all of him. The first will relish dipping into the various refreshments, as it were, and find this a helpful guide on where to go next; the second will delight in re-encountering the familiar passages and re-experiencing the stories. For these readers I rate the book a five.
But there is another type of reader who will find the book infuriating, and for them it would be a four. That is the goup who have read some Wodehouse but not all. They would like to come upon new stories and so would enjoy this book. They would also enjoy re-encountering, like the seasoned reader, those they've already read.
Should one follow the second contents page and stick to the stories, this book admirably serves both purposes. However, there are small snatches from various stories liberally sprinkled between the full-length yarns, some of which give the game and the plot away. Others merely make one want to read the book. The snatches from The Girl on the Boat made me want to track down that elusive novel, which I eventually found in a German paperback (English language) with the cover torn off. Such is the Wodehouse madness when it comes that this book may drive one Plum crazy.
This book was wildly popular in the early 'forties when Wodehouse was thought to be at his peak. As it was he wrote decades longer, cranked out numerous novels and if anything is more widely read today. The comic sketches of Kerr which adorn this volume are reminiscent of Jazz Age cartoonist John Held, whose flappers and sheiks held reign throughout the 'twenties and 'thirties, and it would seem a natural pairing, Held's stylized art and Plum's whimsical writing. For whatever reason, it was not to be. That said, a warning may be in order. As the introduction notes, the Wodehouse Madness reached fevered pitch in 1939. It was thought to have since abated, but with this volume again in circulation, appears to be reaching epidemic proportions.
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