What do you think?
Rate this book
The Prince And Betty
On the contrary, it is, very much. I happen to have some self-respect. I've only just found it out, it's true, but it's there all right. I don't want to be a prince--take it from me, it's a much overrated profession--but if I've got to be one, I'll specialize. I won't combine it with being a bunco steerer on the side. As long as I am on the throne, this high-toned crap-shooting will continue a back number.
214 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1912
125 people are currently reading
455 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,707 books6,954 followersSir 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).
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).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
May 17, 2018
This was my first Wodehouse book, and what a charming start! I loved his writing style. It was so cozy. It was a part of old times. I loved the characters. I absolutely adored it. I will keep reading from him.
April 15, 2012
I selected The Prince and Betty for the collection after coming across it completely by accident. I’d always been aware of P.G. Wodehouse, but I’d never read him before, and I never suspected he wrote romantic fiction. I was utterly charmed and smitten with The Prince and Betty by page four, and by the end I was impressed by his ability to express profound ideas in such simple, beautiful language. Wodehouse’s masterful prose, sparkling dialogue, and trademark sense of humor blend together in a story that is as funny as it is poignant; a story that’s both an entertaining romp and an exposition of human nature. The setting of New York in 1912 jumps off the pages as Wodehouse explores the contradictory nature of a city exploding with opportunity, progress, and entertainment, while hiding its prejudices and inequalities in rundown tenements and back alleys. And only P.G. Wodehouse could throw together princes and newspapers and boxers and gangsters, wrap them all up in an honest and understated love story, and tie it all together in a surprising and supremely satisfying conclusion.
February 13, 2016
Continuing to work my way through the entire Wodehouse corpus, and continuing to enjoy it.
December 23, 2015
It's extremely difficult to find this book in the original UK version, as it appeared in The Strand. Even after carefully scrutinizing the e-book editions, I discovered halfway through the edition I was reading that I had made a mistake when Psmith appeared. (For the US edition, Wodehouse mashed up the text with that of Psmith, Journalist.) After more digging, I finally turned up the real deal, which is important to me, as I want to read all of Wodehouse in order.
The shorter, non-Psmith version is not as bad as many make it out to be, and I suspect that a lot of the poor reviews come from those who have read the mash-up. Sure, it's a frothy romance (it ended up published by Mills & Boon, the UK equivalent of Harlequin), but it's got plenty of Wodehouse touches and dry humor. Not nearly as accomplished as his later work, though I don't think much from this early in his career matches up with his best.
The shorter, non-Psmith version is not as bad as many make it out to be, and I suspect that a lot of the poor reviews come from those who have read the mash-up. Sure, it's a frothy romance (it ended up published by Mills & Boon, the UK equivalent of Harlequin), but it's got plenty of Wodehouse touches and dry humor. Not nearly as accomplished as his later work, though I don't think much from this early in his career matches up with his best.
December 29, 2014
PG Wodehouse isn't an author one generally associates with being published by Mills and Boon, but one version of this 1912 novel of his actually did get released by those romance novel specialists. Not this particular version, though, which—while it does have a romantic angle to it—isn't primarily a love story.
It starts off, though, in love story mode. Betty Silver receives a peremptory summons from her millionaire stepfather Benjamin Scobell, telling her to come to Mervo, a small independent island republic in the Mediterranean. When Betty arrives, it's to find that her uncle—deciding that Mervo would gain substantially from a casino (à la Monte Carlo), has entered into a contract with the local government and built a casino, only to find that the lack of a colourful and glittery royalty (also à la Monte Carlo) means that none of the rich and famous come to Mervo and its casino. Scobell, therefore, has found a solution: he's unearthed the heir to the previously defunct throne of Mervo, a young half-American named John Maude, and having installed him as ruler, has now decided a royal wedding will be very lucrative news. And Betty is the bride he has in mind for John Maude.
Only, Betty had already met—and fallen in love with—John, and now under the impression that he's merely her stepfather's mercenary stooge, she runs away from Mervo, broken-hearted and disillusioned... to wash up in New York, where she ends up as stenographer at a newspaper called Peaceful Moments. Here, things begin to happen swiftly: the editor, having being prescribed rest, has gone off to an undisclosed destination. In his absence, stand-in editor Smith (bespectacled, tall, thin, with communist leanings and a dry wit—Wodehouse aficionados like me will recognise this figure instantly) has decided Peaceful Moments needs a makeover. So the newspaper goes overnight from being a family rag to one that promotes a prize fighter and takes up cudgels on behalf of a battered lot of tenements—with lively consequences.
I admit I hadn't know, before I began reading , that it featured Psmith, who is my favourite Wodehouse character. Now that I've finished the book, I'm glad I hadn't known, because it would've raised my expectations of the story. As it is, this is a not-very satisfying Psmith story (that award would go to Leave it to Psmith, Wodehouse's best book, in my opinion). The story, actually, is an obviously patched together version of John and Betty's love story (which is almost devoid of any humour) with the novel Psmith, Journalist, which—while it does have some humour—isn't up to Wodehouse's usual standard. On the whole, tolerable, but not vintage Wodehouse.
I'd have given this three stars if the writer was anyone but Wodehouse; when it comes to Wodehouse, my expectations are so high that this I'd rate as a paltry two.
It starts off, though, in love story mode. Betty Silver receives a peremptory summons from her millionaire stepfather Benjamin Scobell, telling her to come to Mervo, a small independent island republic in the Mediterranean. When Betty arrives, it's to find that her uncle—deciding that Mervo would gain substantially from a casino (à la Monte Carlo), has entered into a contract with the local government and built a casino, only to find that the lack of a colourful and glittery royalty (also à la Monte Carlo) means that none of the rich and famous come to Mervo and its casino. Scobell, therefore, has found a solution: he's unearthed the heir to the previously defunct throne of Mervo, a young half-American named John Maude, and having installed him as ruler, has now decided a royal wedding will be very lucrative news. And Betty is the bride he has in mind for John Maude.
Only, Betty had already met—and fallen in love with—John, and now under the impression that he's merely her stepfather's mercenary stooge, she runs away from Mervo, broken-hearted and disillusioned... to wash up in New York, where she ends up as stenographer at a newspaper called Peaceful Moments. Here, things begin to happen swiftly: the editor, having being prescribed rest, has gone off to an undisclosed destination. In his absence, stand-in editor Smith (bespectacled, tall, thin, with communist leanings and a dry wit—Wodehouse aficionados like me will recognise this figure instantly) has decided Peaceful Moments needs a makeover. So the newspaper goes overnight from being a family rag to one that promotes a prize fighter and takes up cudgels on behalf of a battered lot of tenements—with lively consequences.
I admit I hadn't know, before I began reading , that it featured Psmith, who is my favourite Wodehouse character. Now that I've finished the book, I'm glad I hadn't known, because it would've raised my expectations of the story. As it is, this is a not-very satisfying Psmith story (that award would go to Leave it to Psmith, Wodehouse's best book, in my opinion). The story, actually, is an obviously patched together version of John and Betty's love story (which is almost devoid of any humour) with the novel Psmith, Journalist, which—while it does have some humour—isn't up to Wodehouse's usual standard. On the whole, tolerable, but not vintage Wodehouse.
I'd have given this three stars if the writer was anyone but Wodehouse; when it comes to Wodehouse, my expectations are so high that this I'd rate as a paltry two.
April 17, 2019
Plum recycles Psmith Journalist within a romance. It’s not an improvement.
May 27, 2015
It's not uncommon for an author to have an attachment to an idea, particulary when that idea comes early in their career and has yet to be displaced by the big breakthrough. This, I believe, is how Wodehouse felt with The Prince and Betty, as he recycled the plot several times in books and serials throughout his career. The Everyman edition is the British novel, published in 1921, and a rewrite of an earlier serial.
The plot goes something like this: Ben Scobell decides to build a casino on the small island republic of Mervo. Unfortunately for him, the venture doesn't exactly fly, so he persuades the islanders that reinstating their monarchy would be a good way to lure in the punters. The current heir, John, is living a typical Wodehousian life of struggling to be a social dynamo on a budget in London and, not being told that the casino is the reason for his return, accepts the post of monarch as a bit of a windfall. Scobell, however, decides that the butter would be put on the spinach by marrying the prince to his own daughter, Betty, little knowing either that she and John already know each other or that his daughter will buck at the prospect of marrying for the sake of a gambling venture. John, not understanding why she therefore flees his presence, leaves his kingdom to win her back.
Whilst the plot is a classic Wodehouse construction, this was written before the author found his comic voice. It is, therefore, more romance than comedy and, in fact, was an early publication by Mills and Boon, the defacto home of boy meets girl. Wodehouse being a little stiffer in the upper lip than your average romantic novelist this doesn't mean the book is slushy, but it lacks a certain vim compared to his first major breakthrough, Love Among the Chickens, which was also rewritten for publication in the same year.
The plot goes something like this: Ben Scobell decides to build a casino on the small island republic of Mervo. Unfortunately for him, the venture doesn't exactly fly, so he persuades the islanders that reinstating their monarchy would be a good way to lure in the punters. The current heir, John, is living a typical Wodehousian life of struggling to be a social dynamo on a budget in London and, not being told that the casino is the reason for his return, accepts the post of monarch as a bit of a windfall. Scobell, however, decides that the butter would be put on the spinach by marrying the prince to his own daughter, Betty, little knowing either that she and John already know each other or that his daughter will buck at the prospect of marrying for the sake of a gambling venture. John, not understanding why she therefore flees his presence, leaves his kingdom to win her back.
Whilst the plot is a classic Wodehouse construction, this was written before the author found his comic voice. It is, therefore, more romance than comedy and, in fact, was an early publication by Mills and Boon, the defacto home of boy meets girl. Wodehouse being a little stiffer in the upper lip than your average romantic novelist this doesn't mean the book is slushy, but it lacks a certain vim compared to his first major breakthrough, Love Among the Chickens, which was also rewritten for publication in the same year.
November 23, 2015
Not my favorite Wodehouse story; I like it more for the use of language than the actual plot and characters (unusual).
It seemed to lose its focus, as if Wodehouse could not decide whether to do one of his comic romances or do a "city" story. I really liked the first part which was a lot of fun. John discovers he is a long-lost prince who has been raised in America, graduated from Harvard, but is discontented with his current life. Betty has been summoned to a Mediterranean island by her millionaire step-father to help him with his current project, which he does not explain to her. Stuff happens.
The story then veers away from Mervo and heads to New York. Smith is introduced; he is familiar in appearance and speech, but American. This character then hijacks the story and we start meeting the fun East Side gangs of New York. I ended up losing interest in all these whimsical characters.
It was ok, but not something I would search out to read again.
It seemed to lose its focus, as if Wodehouse could not decide whether to do one of his comic romances or do a "city" story. I really liked the first part which was a lot of fun. John discovers he is a long-lost prince who has been raised in America, graduated from Harvard, but is discontented with his current life. Betty has been summoned to a Mediterranean island by her millionaire step-father to help him with his current project, which he does not explain to her. Stuff happens.
The story then veers away from Mervo and heads to New York. Smith is introduced; he is familiar in appearance and speech, but American. This character then hijacks the story and we start meeting the fun East Side gangs of New York. I ended up losing interest in all these whimsical characters.
It was ok, but not something I would search out to read again.
May 1, 2019
Betty Silver is wistful and a bit jealous of her friend Elsa's recent happy marriage. The only man she'll ever love is John Maude and he only met her two or three times and doesn't know she exists. When Betty's stepfather, Mr. Scobell summons her to someplace called Mervo, she must obey. Mervo, an island off the Mediterranean, is Mr. Scobell's latest project. He plans to turn the sleepy island into the new Monaco, staring with a playboy prince and a casino. The problem? Mervo has been a republic for many years. No problem. Mr. Scobell digs up the heir in New York and demands his return to Mervo to overthrow the republic. John Maude is astonished to learn his late father was Prince of Mervo. Having just been fired from his job (by his uncle nonetheless) this opportunity comes at a good time. John can't wait to have a good time in paradise. He is astonished to run into Betty at the casino. John's heart certainly remembers her quite well. Alas, as Shakespeare once wrote "the course of true love ne'er did run smooth."
This novel is the closest thing P.G. Wodehouse has to a traditional romance. The second half of the novel goes wildly off base and into more Wodehousian territory but doesn't quite live up to Wodehouse's reputation as a master of comedy. I waffled between 2-3 stars but decided on 2 for several other reasons. 1)There are too many lengthy sections on boxing I had to skip and 2)there are quite a LOT (even for Wodehouse) of racial and ethnic derogatory terms tossed around. I know they're authentic to the time and I know people didn't think anything of it but they weren't necessary for the main plot of the novel. I also didn't care for the New Yawk gangster/slum dialect. Leaving out the second half of the novel and coming up with a quicker reunion would have made this a sweet short story but that wouldn't have been Wodehouse.
The main characters are rather appealing. Betty is a nice girl, not your average socialite or dumb blond type Wodehouse was fond of. She's sweet, kind, sensitive and smart enough to know what to do when the going gets tough. Betty has firm principles and I don't begrudge her for them. She doesn't really grow or change much from start to finish. The character development is focused on John. Without spoiling the plot, I actually like his journey. His realization happens too quickly and his schemes are rather crazy but I like him.
I do not like John's friend Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is downright insane. He's a socialist with Communist leanings and annoys everyone by referring to them as comrade. This gets old after awhile. I don't like his long, fancy way of speaking. It confuses his associates. He's given one boring job to do and he has to go crazy and turn everything on its head. Yes the Peaceful Moments was awful and boring but it was unique and filled a niche. Why not get good quality children's writing or spread happy news? There are plenty of other papers in New York to compete for hard news. I understand the desire to expose the tenement situation but I guessed right away who owned them and why the tenements were in such awful condition. Smith's office boy, Pugsey Malone, is a cowboy wannabe who talks like a dumb gangster in a 1930s film. I have a hard time dicherphing his speech at times.
In contrast to Pugsey, Bat Jarvis is an appealing character from the Lower East Side. A gang leader and cat lover, Bat Jarvis comes as a surprise in a typical crazy Wodehouse way. I think he's rather sweet for a gangster. Kid Brady, a boxer, seems to have been hit in the head a few too many times. I skipped a lot of his scenes because I don't care for boxing and they added nothing to the plot. These characters are manipulated and used by Mr. Smith. Spider Reilley and his gang are ruthless opponents. Their scenes get very violent for Wodehouse, yet they are his stereotypical stupid villains. I don't like the ethnic and racial slurs they toss around or how they intend to send the African-American man into danger first. Typical of the time, yes, but still funny in this day and age? No.
Mr. Scobell is a really nasty, selfish man. He reminds me very much of an orange person currently occupying a seat of power in a certain house. Mr. Scobell gets his own way all the time and doesn't care who he steps on or hurts as long as he gets rich in the process. I really hate people like that. His character development was completely unrealistic (or perhaps we can hope life imitates art?)
This one is for Wodehouse completists.
This novel is the closest thing P.G. Wodehouse has to a traditional romance. The second half of the novel goes wildly off base and into more Wodehousian territory but doesn't quite live up to Wodehouse's reputation as a master of comedy. I waffled between 2-3 stars but decided on 2 for several other reasons. 1)There are too many lengthy sections on boxing I had to skip and 2)there are quite a LOT (even for Wodehouse) of racial and ethnic derogatory terms tossed around. I know they're authentic to the time and I know people didn't think anything of it but they weren't necessary for the main plot of the novel. I also didn't care for the New Yawk gangster/slum dialect. Leaving out the second half of the novel and coming up with a quicker reunion would have made this a sweet short story but that wouldn't have been Wodehouse.
The main characters are rather appealing. Betty is a nice girl, not your average socialite or dumb blond type Wodehouse was fond of. She's sweet, kind, sensitive and smart enough to know what to do when the going gets tough. Betty has firm principles and I don't begrudge her for them. She doesn't really grow or change much from start to finish. The character development is focused on John. Without spoiling the plot, I actually like his journey. His realization happens too quickly and his schemes are rather crazy but I like him.
I do not like John's friend Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is downright insane. He's a socialist with Communist leanings and annoys everyone by referring to them as comrade. This gets old after awhile. I don't like his long, fancy way of speaking. It confuses his associates. He's given one boring job to do and he has to go crazy and turn everything on its head. Yes the Peaceful Moments was awful and boring but it was unique and filled a niche. Why not get good quality children's writing or spread happy news? There are plenty of other papers in New York to compete for hard news. I understand the desire to expose the tenement situation but I guessed right away who owned them and why the tenements were in such awful condition. Smith's office boy, Pugsey Malone, is a cowboy wannabe who talks like a dumb gangster in a 1930s film. I have a hard time dicherphing his speech at times.
In contrast to Pugsey, Bat Jarvis is an appealing character from the Lower East Side. A gang leader and cat lover, Bat Jarvis comes as a surprise in a typical crazy Wodehouse way. I think he's rather sweet for a gangster. Kid Brady, a boxer, seems to have been hit in the head a few too many times. I skipped a lot of his scenes because I don't care for boxing and they added nothing to the plot. These characters are manipulated and used by Mr. Smith. Spider Reilley and his gang are ruthless opponents. Their scenes get very violent for Wodehouse, yet they are his stereotypical stupid villains. I don't like the ethnic and racial slurs they toss around or how they intend to send the African-American man into danger first. Typical of the time, yes, but still funny in this day and age? No.
Mr. Scobell is a really nasty, selfish man. He reminds me very much of an orange person currently occupying a seat of power in a certain house. Mr. Scobell gets his own way all the time and doesn't care who he steps on or hurts as long as he gets rich in the process. I really hate people like that. His character development was completely unrealistic (or perhaps we can hope life imitates art?)
This one is for Wodehouse completists.
July 20, 2016
This is one of those reading experiences that can never be duplicated. It’s also just the kind of thing that I thrive on. (If you wanted an actual review on the actual story--silly you--you’ll have to skip to the final paragraph. My story about reading this story is going to take a while!)
Looking to appease my regular Wodehouse fix, I decided to try something a bit different from those I’d already read. I did this as someone who completely respected, if not adored, Wodehouse’s response to a critic who accused him of using all his old characters under different name. In the preface to his next novel, he responded by saying, “I have outgeneraled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names.” The sameness of his stories is definitely a big part of the draw--I wanted to enter familiar, silly, pure Wodehouse territory.
At the same time, Project Gutenberg has a surprisingly small selection of Wodehouse’s titles available (considering he wrote nearly one-hundred). So, as I browsed the books available, one of them mentioned a prince. Huh. Royalty. That’s new for Wodehouse. I downloaded it and began reading.
I was pretty engaged right from the start. Suddenly, a combination of school and home business, and the fact that the story setting switched from an island in the Mediterranean to turn of the century New York City, brought my progress to an immediate halt. While I’ve yet to find a Wodehouse novel I haven’t liked, I think I have the least patience for his New York setting stories.
Finally, once things settled down externally, I decided that I really needed to finish that Wodehouse novel. I jumped into it with new resolve. The task was not easy. Not only did the story stubbornly stay in New York, but a lot of the plot began to feel really familiar. Again, I like the familiarity of Wodehouse’s works, but this bordered on self-plagiarism--even using some same side characters from another story I recalled, with those characters doing the same things. I plugged forward, determined to give Wodehouse the benefit of the doubt.
Suddenly, I found myself in a scene that I remembered as an exact replica of another one I had read, down to the dialogue and minute details of description. I had enough. Wodehouse, by jove, had gone too far! I searched my mind to remember the other story ole Plum was lifting passages out of and recalled Psmith, Journalist. I almost laughed, the main character, Psmith, directly correlated with a minor character who had suddenly become a main character in The Prince and Betty. Wodehouse named him “Smith.”
I appealed to the Internet to see if it knew of this outrageous bait and switch. Well, don’t let anyone tell you the Internet is completely useless, because not only did it verify my doubts, but it also dispelled my angst against my temporarily-fallen-from-his-pedestal comrade in literature, Wodehouse. The version of The Prince and Betty that I was reading was a compilation of two British stories Wodehouse had written (Psmith, Journalist being the other one) for an American audience. Okay, so he was stealing from himself to create a new story for a new audience: Wodehouse was now acquitted of all charges of deliberate fraud.
That did not change the fact that I had invested in a new story that I was truly interested in. Not only that, but my sources told me that the original story did not take place in New York, but in Britain … back to Wodehouse territory that I reveled in. I needed to find the original The Prince and Betty story. The game was afoot.
Gutenberg and Archive.org both came up empty (at first). They simply held the Frankensteined American version. Then I found out that the original had come out serialized in a couple magazines. The first magazine I tried to hunt down looked like I would only get a hold of through an inter-library loan--something I was not averse to accomplishing (it would not have been the first time I had used it to find a Wodehouse gem written while he was in a German prison camp for WWII). Luckily, the second magazine had been meticulously stored back at Archive.org. While I had to do some digging through issues (The Strand Magazine, 1912, Jan.-Jun. file, in case you wondered), eventually I got a PDF of what I wanted, and sliced out the unneeded portions (though I kept the fascinating article succeeding the story in the magazine, titled, “Which Is the Finest Race?”--thank you, 1912). Wha-la! Previous Wodehouse story restored as well as my faith in the great British successor to the Bard.
As for The Prince and Betty itself (the non-American version), it clips along at a good pace, proving to be a short, amusing read. The romance is engaging--it takes itself a bit more seriously than Wodehouse’s later novels, but it never becomes tedious or too unrealistic. My favorite parts were the politics of the silly island nation of Mervo, and then the return to England with its standard, upper class buffoonery, contrasted to satisfying effect by some American down-to-earth-ness. Was it worth all the trouble? That’s like asking someone if the action scenes in Indiana Jones were worth watching to see him get the Ark of the Covenant at the end (yes, I just compared finding Wodehouse’s original story to Indiana Jones’s finest action scenes--I’m a book nerd, okay?). Read it and enjoy it … if you can find it!
Looking to appease my regular Wodehouse fix, I decided to try something a bit different from those I’d already read. I did this as someone who completely respected, if not adored, Wodehouse’s response to a critic who accused him of using all his old characters under different name. In the preface to his next novel, he responded by saying, “I have outgeneraled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names.” The sameness of his stories is definitely a big part of the draw--I wanted to enter familiar, silly, pure Wodehouse territory.
At the same time, Project Gutenberg has a surprisingly small selection of Wodehouse’s titles available (considering he wrote nearly one-hundred). So, as I browsed the books available, one of them mentioned a prince. Huh. Royalty. That’s new for Wodehouse. I downloaded it and began reading.
I was pretty engaged right from the start. Suddenly, a combination of school and home business, and the fact that the story setting switched from an island in the Mediterranean to turn of the century New York City, brought my progress to an immediate halt. While I’ve yet to find a Wodehouse novel I haven’t liked, I think I have the least patience for his New York setting stories.
Finally, once things settled down externally, I decided that I really needed to finish that Wodehouse novel. I jumped into it with new resolve. The task was not easy. Not only did the story stubbornly stay in New York, but a lot of the plot began to feel really familiar. Again, I like the familiarity of Wodehouse’s works, but this bordered on self-plagiarism--even using some same side characters from another story I recalled, with those characters doing the same things. I plugged forward, determined to give Wodehouse the benefit of the doubt.
Suddenly, I found myself in a scene that I remembered as an exact replica of another one I had read, down to the dialogue and minute details of description. I had enough. Wodehouse, by jove, had gone too far! I searched my mind to remember the other story ole Plum was lifting passages out of and recalled Psmith, Journalist. I almost laughed, the main character, Psmith, directly correlated with a minor character who had suddenly become a main character in The Prince and Betty. Wodehouse named him “Smith.”
I appealed to the Internet to see if it knew of this outrageous bait and switch. Well, don’t let anyone tell you the Internet is completely useless, because not only did it verify my doubts, but it also dispelled my angst against my temporarily-fallen-from-his-pedestal comrade in literature, Wodehouse. The version of The Prince and Betty that I was reading was a compilation of two British stories Wodehouse had written (Psmith, Journalist being the other one) for an American audience. Okay, so he was stealing from himself to create a new story for a new audience: Wodehouse was now acquitted of all charges of deliberate fraud.
That did not change the fact that I had invested in a new story that I was truly interested in. Not only that, but my sources told me that the original story did not take place in New York, but in Britain … back to Wodehouse territory that I reveled in. I needed to find the original The Prince and Betty story. The game was afoot.
Gutenberg and Archive.org both came up empty (at first). They simply held the Frankensteined American version. Then I found out that the original had come out serialized in a couple magazines. The first magazine I tried to hunt down looked like I would only get a hold of through an inter-library loan--something I was not averse to accomplishing (it would not have been the first time I had used it to find a Wodehouse gem written while he was in a German prison camp for WWII). Luckily, the second magazine had been meticulously stored back at Archive.org. While I had to do some digging through issues (The Strand Magazine, 1912, Jan.-Jun. file, in case you wondered), eventually I got a PDF of what I wanted, and sliced out the unneeded portions (though I kept the fascinating article succeeding the story in the magazine, titled, “Which Is the Finest Race?”--thank you, 1912). Wha-la! Previous Wodehouse story restored as well as my faith in the great British successor to the Bard.
As for The Prince and Betty itself (the non-American version), it clips along at a good pace, proving to be a short, amusing read. The romance is engaging--it takes itself a bit more seriously than Wodehouse’s later novels, but it never becomes tedious or too unrealistic. My favorite parts were the politics of the silly island nation of Mervo, and then the return to England with its standard, upper class buffoonery, contrasted to satisfying effect by some American down-to-earth-ness. Was it worth all the trouble? That’s like asking someone if the action scenes in Indiana Jones were worth watching to see him get the Ark of the Covenant at the end (yes, I just compared finding Wodehouse’s original story to Indiana Jones’s finest action scenes--I’m a book nerd, okay?). Read it and enjoy it … if you can find it!
April 9, 2020
A disappointment. 'Tis EARLY Wodehouse, i.e. being written in 1912-ish, it seems??? In this work, our young author knew how to begin a story nicely enough, with a meet-cute premise, but he seemed to run out of ideas very quickly. He introduced a handful of annoying characters who hijack the title characters' story, adds unwarranted doses of sexism and Communism, and THEN he drops us very bored readers into the working class journalism scene of New York City, complete with a couple Irish gangs and way too many racial slurs. (What is the recommended number of racial slurs? NONE!!! ZERO!!)
Badly done, Wodehouse. You're lucky that you redeemed yourself through your adorable fiction of later years.
Badly done, Wodehouse. You're lucky that you redeemed yourself through your adorable fiction of later years.
June 19, 2013
A really good story brings you full circle and this gem by P.G. Wodehouse does just that. If I could (or would) compare it to more modern narratives, two come to mind. The first would be The Mouse that Roared by Leonard Wibberley and the second would be King Ralph by George Emlyn Williams. The first comparison is because the author starts his story in Mervo, a small independent island republic in the Mediterranean Sea. This small country had once been a principality but deposed the prince due to lack of interest. Benjamin Scobell, a rich American decides to build a casino on this picturesque island and rival Monaco. The only flaw he perceived in this plan was that Monaco was still a principality and Mervo had become a republic. To change this, he convinced the populace of the advantage to them of his plan and tracked down the heir to the late prince. This was John Maude, an American and titular heir to the deposed prince. John goes to Mervo to assume his new duties (the King Ralph comparison) and Benjamin Scobell decides that a fitting apex to his creation is to have his new prince marry his niece Betty. He should have realized he couldn’t build his dream on a woman’s emotions. This story was first published in book form in 1912. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all.
February 9, 2017
Wodehouse is finely honing the comical style that characterizes the later novels. This novel, however, is very dissimilar to Bertie/Jeeves. Instead, it’s more like Damon Runyon, if Runyon had ever written a novel. The characteristic near-misses and misunderstandings of Wodehouse are present, as is the jocular young man in spats (here called Smith, supposedly American, but reading like the Psmith of the Wodehouse books of that name), but the two main characters are college-educated Americans. It is the subplot in the last half of the story involving gangs and their “canisters” (guns) that makes it almost unbelievable that this is Wodehouse. Although comedic, the real level of danger presented to the characters is great, especially compared with later novels in which danger is usually in the form of an avenging aunt who threatens to cut off the money supply. Imagine what Wodehouse would have been like if he had chosen to follow the path of this novel rather than the Psmith novels or the Bertie/Jeeves stories!
Wodehouse does a wonderful bit of satire here on the “wholesome” newspapers of the day, probably little knowing that his fare would be held up as wholesome in later years.
Wodehouse does a wonderful bit of satire here on the “wholesome” newspapers of the day, probably little knowing that his fare would be held up as wholesome in later years.
July 18, 2016
Amusing light read, but far from Wodehouse's greatest.
August 2, 2019
Two young people fall in love but flee each other's presence upon a misunderstanding about who is getting paid to romance who. A short time later they both end up in NYC where they serendipitously both being working for the same newspaper office. Together they defeat a slumlord and then feel free to declare their love for each other.
Charming, fast paced, heavy on the 1920s slang. Not nearly as funny as Wodehouse can be, but still elicited some chuckles.
Charming, fast paced, heavy on the 1920s slang. Not nearly as funny as Wodehouse can be, but still elicited some chuckles.
August 28, 2020
Why can't life be like a Wodehouse novel? There's bound to be some comical misunderstandings but the guy always gets the girl and, in the end, they happily settle down as man and wife.
This one involves a fictional Mediterranean island nation whose throne a lazy American discovers he has come to inherit.
This one involves a fictional Mediterranean island nation whose throne a lazy American discovers he has come to inherit.
September 12, 2021
A cute read.
February 8, 2024
I really like P G Wodehouse but this was not one of my favourites. It is great fun in places but there was too much about gang warfare and not enough about Betty and the Prince for me.
September 5, 2021
I like "Psmith, Journalist," but I didn't like having it crammed into the middle of a different story. I think this U.S. edition should just go away.
February 12, 2013
My first book for the year and, it appears, my first Mills and Boon ever. PG Wodehouse was a comic writer whose work basically nostalgises a period before the First World War when young, pointless men gadded about London and the countryside trying to amuse themselves despite their lack of education, drive, or purpose. I love his work, and so when there was a book I didn’t recognise on Librivox (which is, I have discovered a home for completists like me), I snapped it up.
It’s an odd, odd book, structurally. Basically Wodehouse wrote a simple love story about a man who is made prince of a little tourist island by a gambling magnate. He had that published by a romance company in the UK. Then, for this American edition, he added a great deal of material from Psmith, Journalist, which is set in New York. Now, I quite enjoyed the Psmith series, but there’s such a break in tone between the two parts that its clear that the section dealing with the career of an up and coming boxer in New York is a transplant. The whole tone of the book switches and the effective main character changes, so that much like the last chapter of Huckleberry Finn, you wonder where the book you were reading before has gone.
I’d recommend Psmith, Journalist, but I’d only recommend this for completists like myself. The reading’s well done, but the material has a crack up the middle.
This review originally posted on book coasters.
It’s an odd, odd book, structurally. Basically Wodehouse wrote a simple love story about a man who is made prince of a little tourist island by a gambling magnate. He had that published by a romance company in the UK. Then, for this American edition, he added a great deal of material from Psmith, Journalist, which is set in New York. Now, I quite enjoyed the Psmith series, but there’s such a break in tone between the two parts that its clear that the section dealing with the career of an up and coming boxer in New York is a transplant. The whole tone of the book switches and the effective main character changes, so that much like the last chapter of Huckleberry Finn, you wonder where the book you were reading before has gone.
I’d recommend Psmith, Journalist, but I’d only recommend this for completists like myself. The reading’s well done, but the material has a crack up the middle.
This review originally posted on book coasters.
September 19, 2018
Which Prince and Betty did you read? This might be a greeting at Wodehouse conventions. It seems that the story was serialized in a 20,000ish and a 30,000ish format to the UK and the US. Forgive me, I've forgotten which country was blessed with the shorter version. These were oddly for Wodehouse fairly straight forward romances. An expanded edition of one version of other or possibly a combination of both was published in England. This is all fairly straightforward as Wodehouse was often serialized on both sides of the Pond and then republished in expanded book form on both sides.
Now the story get interesting, apparently there was no great clamor for this romantic bit of fluff in America nor was there a desire to publish the third Psmith story with the objection that it had no love interest. Cleverly PG Wodehouse solved both problems by putting the Prince and Betty in front of Psmith the III and calling it a novel. Making the male of the species in aka The Prince in the romance a substitute for Mike solved some of the continuity problems. It couldn't hide the fact that the first half was a romance and the second half was a comedy. Just to add to the fun, the story was apparently recycled many moons later for another magazine and more recently that version was put in book form.
All that aside, it is an oddity with a straight romance followed by a hacked version of Psmith, Journalist. Just read the later.
Now the story get interesting, apparently there was no great clamor for this romantic bit of fluff in America nor was there a desire to publish the third Psmith story with the objection that it had no love interest. Cleverly PG Wodehouse solved both problems by putting the Prince and Betty in front of Psmith the III and calling it a novel. Making the male of the species in aka The Prince in the romance a substitute for Mike solved some of the continuity problems. It couldn't hide the fact that the first half was a romance and the second half was a comedy. Just to add to the fun, the story was apparently recycled many moons later for another magazine and more recently that version was put in book form.
All that aside, it is an oddity with a straight romance followed by a hacked version of Psmith, Journalist. Just read the later.
August 28, 2010
This is two storiesprobably written separately then later loosely tied together, as a shift in tone is pronounced and abrupt. In the first, the main focus is upon an all American young man whose evil stepfather turns him out after coming in to work bleary eyed one morning after a night of partying with his chums. Lucky for him that shortly thereafter he learns he is the rightful heir to the throne of a sleepy little island kingdom near Greece called Mervo! In this first section of the book, predominantly in Mervo, he again sees an old friend, the American girl of his dreams--Betty-- who rejects him 9despite his royalty) when she thinks he is a toady to her own evil stepfather, the capitalist tycoon power behind the throne, calling all the shots in Mervo, which parodies Monaco. (Wodehouse does seem to have a thing about evil stepfathers, too.)
In the second part of the book the star-crossed lovers both end up in New York, unaware of each other's location, and befriend many of the same charming secondary characters--most notably, the illustrious Psmith, who re-surfaces in this novel as a boxing promoter/scandalous journal editor. There is a heavy critique of tenement slumlords and the sordid conditions of life for the urban poor here, as well as lots of lively interactions with gangland New York. All in all, great fun, another witty Wodehouse novel.
In the second part of the book the star-crossed lovers both end up in New York, unaware of each other's location, and befriend many of the same charming secondary characters--most notably, the illustrious Psmith, who re-surfaces in this novel as a boxing promoter/scandalous journal editor. There is a heavy critique of tenement slumlords and the sordid conditions of life for the urban poor here, as well as lots of lively interactions with gangland New York. All in all, great fun, another witty Wodehouse novel.
August 6, 2021
Would stand up fairly well as a modern adventure-romance plot, except that there are a number of instances in which characters (including the hero) use offensive ethnic epithets.
Unlike Wodehouse's better-known work, this has tension and stakes beyond social embarrassment; there are New York gangsters (including the cat-loving and sympathetic leader of the East Side gang), investigative journalism exposing a slumlord, and (as in Jill the Reckless) a heroine from a wealthy background forced by circumstances to earn a precarious living in New York.
In this case, "circumstances" are her own principles; both the hero and heroine are highly principled, which makes their fairly lightly-sketched attraction much more believable to me than is the case in many other romance books.
It does show the wires a bit in that New York is several times mentioned as having a population of four million, but the same half-dozen people keep coincidentally running into each other, as if it was a village.
It's funny, but it's also suspenseful, and engages with issues of the day and with the realities of poverty to at least a small degree, rather than living in a privileged, politically unaware fantasyland like so many Wodehouse novels. I'm enjoying these early works of his more than I expected to.
Unlike Wodehouse's better-known work, this has tension and stakes beyond social embarrassment; there are New York gangsters (including the cat-loving and sympathetic leader of the East Side gang), investigative journalism exposing a slumlord, and (as in Jill the Reckless) a heroine from a wealthy background forced by circumstances to earn a precarious living in New York.
In this case, "circumstances" are her own principles; both the hero and heroine are highly principled, which makes their fairly lightly-sketched attraction much more believable to me than is the case in many other romance books.
It does show the wires a bit in that New York is several times mentioned as having a population of four million, but the same half-dozen people keep coincidentally running into each other, as if it was a village.
It's funny, but it's also suspenseful, and engages with issues of the day and with the realities of poverty to at least a small degree, rather than living in a privileged, politically unaware fantasyland like so many Wodehouse novels. I'm enjoying these early works of his more than I expected to.
April 18, 2012
The Prince and Betty may come as a bit of a revelation to those who know P.G. Wodehouse mainly through the escapades of Jeeves, Wooster & Co. It's unquestionably humor, but it's humor with heart. The romance is sweet, and the principal characters' subsequent brushes with difficulty and heartbreak are very genuine. Wodehouse was a master of the English language, and he could turn his gift with words to more serious purpose, too, when he wanted.
The fact that this was originally two stories woven together can certainly be felt a little, in the way that character of Smith seems to take over the narrative at times, and how decisively Mervo and its inhabitants are left behind after the first section of the book for the streets of New York. But with P.G. Wodehouse as a guide, plenty of fun is guaranteed in any location. I particularly loved the scenes of the royal arrival and the "revolution" in Mervo. Wodehouse also seems to have a more natural touch with American characters than other British authors I've read. I've read a bit more of his early work besides The Prince and Betty, too, and I certainly enjoyed the slightly different style enough to look forward to reading more of the same.
The fact that this was originally two stories woven together can certainly be felt a little, in the way that character of Smith seems to take over the narrative at times, and how decisively Mervo and its inhabitants are left behind after the first section of the book for the streets of New York. But with P.G. Wodehouse as a guide, plenty of fun is guaranteed in any location. I particularly loved the scenes of the royal arrival and the "revolution" in Mervo. Wodehouse also seems to have a more natural touch with American characters than other British authors I've read. I've read a bit more of his early work besides The Prince and Betty, too, and I certainly enjoyed the slightly different style enough to look forward to reading more of the same.
January 11, 2014
Earlier/Alternate Version of "Psmith Journalist". The hero of this book, named Smith, seems so much like the more famous Wodehouse character, Psmith. The reason is that they are the same character with a few minor changes, most importantly Smith is American.
This has to do with the publication history of this book. In 1910, Wodehouse published a novel called "Psmith Journalist" serialized in the American magazine continuing the adventures of Psmith and Mike from "Psmith in the City" as they grapple with lots of American gangsters, boxers, slumlords, etc. This novel was published in book form as "Psmith Journalist" in 1915.
In the meantime, he published 2 different (US & UK) revised versions under the title "Prince and Betty" -- one with and one without an additional love story. The version here appears to be the US version.
I have read and enjoyed "Psmith Journalist," and while ,it is the weakest of his Psmith books I definately recomend it as a must for any Wodehouse fan. I haven't yet read "Prince and Betty" but am looking forward to it to see the differences between it and Psmith Journalist. Also, Jimmy Pitt the hero of the excellent Wodehouse book, "Gentleman of Leisure" makes an appearance in Prince and Betty
This has to do with the publication history of this book. In 1910, Wodehouse published a novel called "Psmith Journalist" serialized in the American magazine continuing the adventures of Psmith and Mike from "Psmith in the City" as they grapple with lots of American gangsters, boxers, slumlords, etc. This novel was published in book form as "Psmith Journalist" in 1915.
In the meantime, he published 2 different (US & UK) revised versions under the title "Prince and Betty" -- one with and one without an additional love story. The version here appears to be the US version.
I have read and enjoyed "Psmith Journalist," and while ,it is the weakest of his Psmith books I definately recomend it as a must for any Wodehouse fan. I haven't yet read "Prince and Betty" but am looking forward to it to see the differences between it and Psmith Journalist. Also, Jimmy Pitt the hero of the excellent Wodehouse book, "Gentleman of Leisure" makes an appearance in Prince and Betty
November 23, 2015
I like most of this author’s works but this is among the few that barely passes as being “okay”. It felt disjointed in that the first third of the book is set on an island close to France, whereas the remainder of the tale is set in America, which feels like Mr Wodehouse grew tired of the original storyline and opted for a radical change.
Another reason why this didn’t appeal is that those last two-thirds of the book are almost identical to events in “Psmith Journalist”, which I’ve read not long before this one, meaning I knew what was coming. There are subtle changes, such as a few different characters. The Psmith from other Wodehouse tales is the same character as the Smith in this one, except Psmith is English and Smith is American.
The main reason this didn’t appeal to me is owing to the amount of long-winded narrative and the lack of snappy dialogue that Mr Wodehouse was always a master at. In fact the first chapter features some of his classic witty character exchanges, which made me think that I was in store for another engaging comedy, but the waffling second chapter stated the real narrative pace and tone.
A few quality moments here and there persuaded me to rate this novel two stars instead of one.
Another reason why this didn’t appeal is that those last two-thirds of the book are almost identical to events in “Psmith Journalist”, which I’ve read not long before this one, meaning I knew what was coming. There are subtle changes, such as a few different characters. The Psmith from other Wodehouse tales is the same character as the Smith in this one, except Psmith is English and Smith is American.
The main reason this didn’t appeal to me is owing to the amount of long-winded narrative and the lack of snappy dialogue that Mr Wodehouse was always a master at. In fact the first chapter features some of his classic witty character exchanges, which made me think that I was in store for another engaging comedy, but the waffling second chapter stated the real narrative pace and tone.
A few quality moments here and there persuaded me to rate this novel two stars instead of one.
October 20, 2007
Wodehouse’s American publishers elected not to publish ‘Psmith, Journalist’ in American, it could be that with it having no love interest they considered that it jarred with his output at that time, it could be they considered the references to cricket and the MCC would confuse an American audience. Anyway not to be refused Wodehouse took another magazine serial he had recently published, ‘A Prince for Hire’, and blended the two stories together. Blend is really not the right word as the two books are a little ill-fitting and make take the implausible plot of ‘Psmith, Journalist’ to new heights or more aptly further depths.
Psmith old Etonian becomes Smith Yale man but with still all the eccentricities of the English dandy down to the monocle. Billy Windsor becomes John Maude, Mediterranean Prince with Betty Scobell as his love interest.
This really is the worst book Wodehouse published and readers are advised to read ‘Psmith, Journalist’ and put pursuing this novel out of their minds.
Psmith old Etonian becomes Smith Yale man but with still all the eccentricities of the English dandy down to the monocle. Billy Windsor becomes John Maude, Mediterranean Prince with Betty Scobell as his love interest.
This really is the worst book Wodehouse published and readers are advised to read ‘Psmith, Journalist’ and put pursuing this novel out of their minds.
August 21, 2015
Wow! What a little socialist Wodehouse was! And how much more violent his books were in the early days! Of course, because it's Wodehouse, the actual violence against the lead characters is kept to a minimum, but OMG! he almost killed one off! And his characters are trying to clean up what can only be described as a section of Hell's Kitchen on the east side!
After becoming Prince For a Day, our Mr. Maude rejects la vie royale once it's pointed out by the woman he loves that he's being a patsy. Then the story switches back to being about her (she started the book). Wodehouse gets you interested in one story and then jerks you out of it to another, leaving you wondering and wondering. But I thought this story was about ...
One thing I have to say about these early books is that Wodehouse appeared to be a big fan of boxing. Hardly a book goes by without a match or a retired boxer cropping up.
After becoming Prince For a Day, our Mr. Maude rejects la vie royale once it's pointed out by the woman he loves that he's being a patsy. Then the story switches back to being about her (she started the book). Wodehouse gets you interested in one story and then jerks you out of it to another, leaving you wondering and wondering. But I thought this story was about ...
One thing I have to say about these early books is that Wodehouse appeared to be a big fan of boxing. Hardly a book goes by without a match or a retired boxer cropping up.
April 24, 2009
A not typical PG Wodehouse. Apparently originally published in serial format in the Stand Magazine and then latter published in book form in Britain. There is a guy, and there is a girl and they do have an on again/off again romance, but this book is far less humorous than the usual Wodehouse fair and in fact, has a huge social message. A real "everyman" vs. big business tale with muck racking journalism tossed in as a story within the story within the story.
So, girl likes boy; boy yearns for girl; boy finds out as an adult he's really a prince; boy gives up being a prince and also loses his initial chance to romance and marry the girl. Girl flees. Boy flees. Girl drowns her sorrows pursuing "work" (secretary for a very small newspaper).Girl writes expose about New York tenement conditions. Boy turns up; girl flees again. And so it goes. Oh...and then there is the long winded yarn about prize fighting (it really does all make sense in the end).
So, girl likes boy; boy yearns for girl; boy finds out as an adult he's really a prince; boy gives up being a prince and also loses his initial chance to romance and marry the girl. Girl flees. Boy flees. Girl drowns her sorrows pursuing "work" (secretary for a very small newspaper).Girl writes expose about New York tenement conditions. Boy turns up; girl flees again. And so it goes. Oh...and then there is the long winded yarn about prize fighting (it really does all make sense in the end).
July 1, 2018
An early outing from Wodehouse.
The customary sundered hearts belong to John Maude and Betty Silver, the shamelessly contrived plot involves a Monte Carlo style casino, a peaceful revolution, a rundown tenement in New York, prize-fighting, black-jacks and a smattering of truly atrocious criminal patois.
There are enough examples of the trademark Wodehousian wit. Unsrupulous businessman Bennie Scobell interrupts his docile sister 'like a rhinoceros through a cobweb', and substitute newspaper editor Smith enters his office filled with disgruntled contributors 'rather like a very well-dressed Daniel introduced into a den of singularly irritable lions.'
The overall effect is not as sparkling as he would become by the time he introduced Blandings and Jeeves to the world, though still highly genial. The description of a boxing match in chapter 15 being the obvious highlight.
He didn't yet have his house entirely in order, but he soon wode.
The customary sundered hearts belong to John Maude and Betty Silver, the shamelessly contrived plot involves a Monte Carlo style casino, a peaceful revolution, a rundown tenement in New York, prize-fighting, black-jacks and a smattering of truly atrocious criminal patois.
There are enough examples of the trademark Wodehousian wit. Unsrupulous businessman Bennie Scobell interrupts his docile sister 'like a rhinoceros through a cobweb', and substitute newspaper editor Smith enters his office filled with disgruntled contributors 'rather like a very well-dressed Daniel introduced into a den of singularly irritable lions.'
The overall effect is not as sparkling as he would become by the time he introduced Blandings and Jeeves to the world, though still highly genial. The description of a boxing match in chapter 15 being the obvious highlight.
He didn't yet have his house entirely in order, but he soon wode.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews