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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Early Wodehouse - Good but not great,
By Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Gentleman of Leisure (Hardcover)
"A Gentleman of Leisure" was first published under the title "The Intrusion of Jimmy" in the U.S. on May 11, 1910 by W. J. Watt and Co., and in the U.K. it was published under this title on November 15, 1910 by Alston Rivers, Ltd., which makes it one of Wodehouse's earlier works. The edition I am reviewoing is from The Collector's Wodehouse series being released by The Overlook Press (in the U.K. it is The Everyman's Wodehouse series from Everyman's Library). The series is very nicely produced, the bindings are excellent, and the paper quality is high.
This particular story is about Jimmy Pitt, who makes a bet that "any man of ordinary intelligence could break into a house." There is some pre-history to the characters, which the reader is given in a hurry, and it feels a bit more forced than other Wodehouse books that I have read. I do not want to go into much detail about the plot because there are many twists and turns which are undoubtedly familiar to readers of Wodehouse. Still, there is something missing in the telling of this story. It lacks the easy flow that many of his later stories have. However, one can see the early elements of what would eventually make P. G. Wodehouse one of the great humorists of all time.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK Comic Novel Foreshadows Better Stories,
By
This review is from: A Gentleman of Leisure (Paperback)
First published in 1910, this is one of Wodehouse's earliest adult novels, and it shows. Wodehouse's fine comic prose is very much in evidence and makes it readable enough; the trouble is the blandly flawless straight-arrow protagonist and the soppy generic romance plot. There are some more successful comical secondary characters, including a New York burglar (whose colourful New York criminal dialect begins to grate after a while), and a jelly-spined hard-up-for-cash English Lord tyrannised by his overbearing Uncle.Having read and loved some later Wodehouse, especially the Jeeves and Bertie stories, I soon found the more interesting elements of the book to be the foreshadowings of what was to come, viz: · Lord Dreever is rather like Bertie Wooster might be if he was dependent on Aunt Agatha; In brief, this is chiefly for the Wodehouse fan interested in following the Master's development as a writer. Also published under the title 'The Intrusion of Jimmy'.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overlooked Early Wodehouse Gem.,
By MRS P NICHOLSON (U.K.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Gentleman of Leisure (Paperback)
Very interesting one this. While obviously not of the quality of his later work(i.e. from Leave It To Psmith onwards) this is a key early Wodehouse text. It almost reads like an early prototype for the aforementioned Psmith book, with it's country estate setting complete with valuable jewellery and potential thieves. Add in a very Threepwood-like peer with the backbone of a jellyfish having to contend with a formidable Uncle and Aunt and you have all the key ingredients for a classic Wodehouse.If you've read Leave It To Psmith then on no account miss this one, it's not the best of his early books(probably Pmith in the City) but it's the most prophetic.
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