The Uncollected Wodehouse

by P.G. Wodehouse, David A. Jasen (Editor), Malcolm Muggeridge (Foreword by)

USED. Trade size pb in very good condition. Minor shelf wear. The cover shown here is not the cover. This release is the one with the pink cover. (#L098)

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Short Stories, British Literature, Comedy

212 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1976

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bottom line first:
This may not be Plummy at his best. He will get better. For the true believer and the first-time reader Uncollected Wodehouse is fun. This collection will deliver regular smiles. He is, as always very family friendly.

Somewhere there are English doctoral studies analyzing the subtle and nuanced symbology and subtext of the many works of P.G (Plummy) Wodehouse. God bless the oh so earnest degree seeking souls penning these brilliant exercises. And blessed too be those of their long-suffering, serious, hoary headed thesis committee members. And please, keep them far away from us. All well-meaning souls no doubt, but rather wide of the mark. Let there be no confusion, Plummy was writing to get and keep bread and maybe a little more on the family groaning board. If we are to be honest a lot of the selections here-in collected, were written to stave off the deadly dull drudge-filled hours that was his life as a middling bank clerk

The Uncollected Wodehouse edited by his biographer David Jasen and with a forward by his one-time Editor (at Punch) Malcolm Muggeridge is a something many collections are not, cohesive. It is a sampling of an author working very hard to write bill paying ephemera. The full Wodehouse shelf is 75 years of a man driven to write fun and funny tales. Here he is yet young.

Works are uneven in the sense that the author has not fully matured into his later mastery of feather light humor. Most of these selections were written for magazines, and include a lot of his firsts. For example, his first selection published in the venerable humor magazine Punch. Others represent him casting about for his voice, for example his only mystery. We can read his first upstairs downstairs humor based on a butler, well before the inimical Jeeves shimmers onto the page.

A portrait of the author as a young man, sharing his sense of humor and determined to use it to keep body and soul together.

[Hannah Penn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful from start to finish!

[Leew49 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice diversion for fans of Wodehouse, this collection includes some of his early short stories. Many of the prototypes for Wodehouse's better known characters are here, including a somewhat simpleminded young man of independent means and a self-effacing but nonetheless formidable butler. There is also a murder mystery in which Wodehouse pokes lighthearted fun at the Sherlock Holmes tradition.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Wodehouse stories, newspaper columns, and early writing. These will be mostly new to fans of the Jeeves and Wooster books, but demonstrate Wodehouse's comic range and lively writing style.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wodehouse fans will love any Wodehouse they can get their hands on, and this volume does include some early gems -- as well as some that haven't aged as well over the past century. Definitely worth perusing.

[Lynne Cosmano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic

[Susan Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm entering in all the titles on the shelf by Wodehouse. I know I've read others, but this is what I kept.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weak beginning pieces but you can see his style evolve towards his later glory. Last half pretty solid.

[Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not always fun, mostly fun though.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

P.G. Wodehouse is my go-to author when I need a laugh. Good to find he was funny from the very first.

[Boweavil · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all you Wodehouse fans, here's a collection of some of his earliest pieces. Delightful as always.

[MH · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of Wodehouse's earliest writing is an odd mix - there are some painfully period-specific parodies, pre-WWI schoolboy stories, a few stories with surprisingly working class protagonists, one with a mildly unpleasant proto-Jeeves and an interesting, proper detective story. A few of the stories near the end enter the world, and show the sparkle, that he'll eventually master, but his output was so insanely prolific (and his later works so much better) that this particular collection really feels for Wodehouse completists only.

[Elisha Condie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this at the San Francisco book sale place near Fort Mason. It's like book heaven - tons of books, in new condition, for super cheap. Aaaah.
Just a little collection of Wodehouse articles that appeared in both American and British papers and magazines, before he really settled down and wrote books. I really liked them. Wodehouse's heroines found in his short story romantic comedies are the best anywhere. I want to be one of them! And I loved reading the story featuring pre-Bertie Wooster character Reggie Pepper.
Not for the Wodehouse rookie, but good if you already like him and want something different. My in-laws tell me that I mention Bertie or Jeeves in at least half of my book reviews. I hope this isn't true but sort of think it might be.

[Captain Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the best collection of Wodehouse short stories I've ever read. "The Man Upstairs" still makes me smile just thinking about it ☺ Wodehouse is genious. There's no way around it.

"There are two types of people: Those who love Wodehouse, and those who have never heard of him. There is a third class, those who do not like him (it is possible!) but I put them in a lower class of (sub)human intellegance."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the earlier bits were a little stiff for my ears, but they were written about 100 years ago (literally) so are allowed the formality of their time. I thought his article on mysteries, which was used to introduce his own mystery story in this book, was the best of the bunch - absolutely fantastic.

[Somdutta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among few of his early works, this books contains a Wodehouse mystery story - Death at the Excelsior, The Test Case - a story of Reggie the precursor to Bertie Wooster and The Good Angel - a story which has in it Keggs, a first of the long line of butlers in a Wodehouse story.This is quite a varied collection of Wodehouse stories which will be a delight to every Wodehouse reader.

[Cora · Rating 3 out of 5]

This got better as it went along (which, given that it was in chronological order, is a good thing!). My favorites were the stories that were the early versions of the familiar and well-loved Wodehouse fare: the romantic comedy with the daffy young man and the strong young woman, and the occasional addition of a voice of reason (as in a Jeeves-like character) or a scary aunt.

[Rachel Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius, but that's a given- it's P.G. Wodehouse. If you're a really devoted Wodehouse fan, the chances are that you've read some of the stories in this book- they're included in Kindle collections. However, there is still several delightful articles that I'd never seen before. All in all, a delightful collection.

[Christine Pearson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK. Slow going for the first few stories but then they picked up, as another reviewer noted that was good since they were chronilogical. I think I like the Hugh Laurie Bertie and Wooster better than the short stories here. The endings of most of them were predictable, maybe that is part of their charm. Getting to the endings was very low key, not much to get excited about.

[Rickeclectic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comic essays and short stories, mostly loose ends, one about golf. Mostly for folks filling out their Wodehouse collection

[Gretchen Ingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well of course I loved it- it's Wodehouse!

[QNPoohBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of unremarkable early stories by the witty P.G. Wodehouse.

[Kevin Connery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Average-to-weak Wodehouse