The first Jeeves book

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My Man Jeeves is the first P.G. Wodehouse book with Bertie Wooster or his valet Jeeves in the title. Only half of these eight stories, however, feature Jeeves and Wooster. The other half are about Reggie Pepper, an early prototype for Bertie. Two of the Pepper stories were actually later rewritten as Jeeves stories.

It's fascinating to read these stories together. The Pepper stories are very similar to the Jeeves ones, except without Jeeves there to come up with solutions. The addition of Jeeves makes the stories much more entertaining--he's an iconic character.

These are all fun to read, though, even if too many are simply about idle young men panicking over losing the streams of money from their rich relatives. Overall, they read like somewhat earlier, undeveloped versions of Wodehouse's later work. They're a nice, quick diversion with some funny zingers, but not yet showing the comic brilliance of Wodehouse's later work. If Goodreads allowed half stars, this would get 3 1/2.



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