Customer Reviews

The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works) [Illustrated]

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These are most of the Wodehouse works published before 1922 which, sadly, leaves out most of his best stuff and includes primarily juvenilia.

Two collections of P.G. Wodehouse kindle books have identical contents, however, one is twice the price of the other. The cheaper is: 'The Novels of P.G. Wodehouse, the dearer one is: 'The essential P.G. Wodehouse'. Incidentally, both collections also contain 2 of the 3 books contained in 'The Jeeves Collection' as well. Having said that it is a fantastic collection of P.G. Woodhouse books.Most Cost effective is to buy Buy 'The Novels of......' only, mind you its only 2:99USD anyway!The Novels of P. G. Wodehouse (33 novels +)The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works)My Man Jeeves

If you are planning to read in your PC, they are available through the Project Gutenberg for free as these titles are in the public domain. If you want it for the Kindle device, check out the 99c version.

As a lifelong reader of P. G. Wodehouse and a confirmed Kindlephile I'm very happy to see Bob Henry has riffled through the public domain offerings available and assembled this huge collection. I haven't submerged myself in Plum's writing so thoroughly in years. It is definitely worth the price of $2.99. In fact, I sent a copy to my mother, who just last year gave me the family Wodehouse collection .. about 96 books, few in good shape but all in a bookcase in the basement. I don't feel cheated.

That said, Mr. Henry has a lot to answer for.

For the most part the texts are error free. I find it quite irritating that all phrases italicized in the originals show up like _this_, with underscores before and after the words. Even more upsetting is the fact that any letter with an accent is simply missing. Wodehouse does like to drop in casual French exclamations; having to puzzle them out is dreary.

Other reviews mention the absence of a Table of Contents. It is there, but you have to hunt for it, a tedious endeavor. I found it by going to 'beginning' then using PREV PAGE to step back into it. You can also get there by going directly to 'cover.' The links do work, too. Most of the novels have their own TOC as well but these are not live links, just a list of chapters.

The pictures .. whatever the source .. are dismal line drawings. But I since didn't get the collection to look at them, this is no real loss.

The worst aspect of the collection is the duplication of content. Wodehouse writes to formula, of course. Now Halfway through, I have discovered at least three instances where this collection contains multiple versions of the same novel, under different titles.

"Mike" (serialized in 1909 as "Jackson, Junior") contains both "Mike at Wrykyn" and "Enter Psmith" (from 1935, serialized in 1909 as "Lost Lambs"). The following text, "Mike and Psmith," is the 1953 version of "Enter Psmith," which is simply a reissue.You can sort this out here: [...]
The worst case of this I've so far found is the 1909 serial "The Gem Collector." The collection has the same story in three versions (so far), including the 1910 novel "The Intrusion of Jimmy" (published in the US W.J. Watt and Co. then serialised under that title in the British weekly magazine Titbits) then published in Britain as "A Gentleman of Leisure." The characters and incidents are essentially the same in all three versions, with only minor variants (e.g. a necklace is variously described as being 'pearls' or 'diamonds') http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gem_Collector

My point is that without some comment on textual variance, out of place in a reader's collection, one is brought up short by a wrenching sense of déjà vu (or, as the phrase would appear in the collection, _dj vu_.

The collector does the author no favors by presenting him in so slipshod a fashion. Still, the essential zaniness of Wodehouse's characters and plots shines through. Overall, I'm glad I bought this.

[ASIN:B001D75S74 The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works) [Illustrated]

These is an excellent well-organized collection. Wodehouse is always fresh, funny and clever. You can't beat this price.

There is no way to navigate through the book. You have no idea what is in the book and you must stumble through page by page to find what is it it.

There is no Table of Content for this collection. If you wanted to read the 3rd or the 25th item, tough luck. Just keep tapping through the pages and make a guess on which page the beginning of the book/chapter is. Its a exercise in waste of time. Like another user mentioned, the typeface is not the best choice. BTW lot of these works are in public domain. Reason to choose to 'buy' would be in the expectation of added value. Not feeling that.

I bought this book because of all the hilarious golf stories. Only for those, the price is a bargain. In addition there are many hours of good funny novels and short stories. Ideal to cheer up. Kindle format is great as you can have it in your device ready to be read along other books.