Customer Reviews

P.G. Wodehouse : Five Complete Novels (The Return of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, Spring Fever, The Butler Did It, The Old Reliable)

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but I wouldn't want anyone basing his/her opinion of the large and largely breathtakingly wit of Wodehouse's collected work based merely on this budget anthology.

The novels are set in post-World War II England, and as such they reflect those dispiriting times. The great mansions are in ruin from confiscatory taxation, TV distracts the intellect, Hollywood (not the London theater) dominates popular entertainment, and a loyal butler like Jeeves is clearly a holdover from a different era in which his employers were not, relatively speaking, impoverished.

Wodehouse's fans (of which there are many, both in the UK and the USA) will probably want to read these novels anyway. But if you are contemplating your first exposure to Wodehouse, I'd recommend instead any of his "classic" Bertie-and-Jeeves novels from the 1920s, when social class, punctilio, pith, dry wit and a plenitude of household help for the rich were integral elements of this type of humor. CARRY ON, JEEVES! happens to be my favorite, but there are plenty of other wonderful reads from this era.

I'm a huge Wodehouse fan, and I find this to be the oddest of all collections. Unlike anything else I've read by Wodehouse, these tales take place after WWII, imbuing the normally bucolic Wodehousian universe with a discomforting sense of dread, of post-war angst. Wodehouse, who himself had much angst following the War, seems to let it show in these stories. A Postlapsarian Wodehouse is a very shaky Wodehouse indeed; oh, for the edenic airs of Blandings Castle, or the gentle hum of the Drones in the early afternoon. The reader is better off there.

I read this set of five novels over last Thanksgiving, while cooped up in a car with the 'rents on a trip to visit my sister. It was my introduction to Wodehouse, and served me well in that capacity. I very rarely laugh out loud at books, and I did so several times while engrossed in this collection. But... reading five Wodehouse novels in two days makes you realize just how formulaic the characters and plots can be. Essentially Wodehouse novels are the literary equivalent of sitcoms. Very good sitcoms, to be sure, more on the order of "Frasier" than of "Friends," but by the time you read the fifth novel in this book, you won't be surprised by any of the plot's turns. My advice -- don't read 'em all at one sitting, and you might enjoy the experience more.

Fans of P.G. Wodehouse often refer to Jeeves as a butler, but as Bertie Wooster reminds us, Jeeves is actually a gentleman's gentleman, a valet. But on occasion, Jeeves is pressed into service as a butler, and performs quite well.

Imagine the surprise that many P.G. Wodehouse fans have when they open The Butler Did It and find that the butler in question is a Mr. Augustus Keggs, the English butler for one J.J. Bunyan, an American multimillionaire. But this Keggs is a worthy character who fans of Jeeves will find to be very rewarding.

The book has one of the most intriguing plots in all of the Wodehouse novels. As the story opens, it is the night of September tenth, 1929, just before the collapse of the American stock market. Bunyan is entertaining a group of bored millionaires who are having a hard time deciding how to spend the money they are raking in. Among his guests is Mortimer Bayliss, his art curator, who cannot help but want to stir up the philistines. Bayliss proposes that the men each put up $50,000 with the proceeds of the tontine to go to the last of their sons to marry. Naturally, they have to keep the whole matter a secret or deny themselves the possibility of ever having grandchildren.

The book then glides forward in time to the mid 1950s in England as the end game of the tontine arrives. Mr. Keggs is a fellow tenant with Lord Uffenham (who has fallen on hard times), whom he formerly served as a butler, and his niece, Jane Benedick. Mr. Kegg's own niece, Emma, is engaged to marry Roscoe Bunyan, son of the late J.J. Bunyan, of the tontine. Like the wise and omniscient butler he is, Mr. Keggs had recorded the conversation that night and knows all about the tontine. The tontine is down to Roscoe and one other. Mr. Keggs decides that the time has come to intercede.

Jane is engaged to one Stanhope Twine, a hopeless sculptor, but the two cannot marry because Twine hasn't the funds. Mr. Keggs suggests to Roscoe that Twine is the other member of the tontine, and that Twine will marry in a heartbeat if he can get hold of some money. Keggs suggests that Roscoe buy a percentage of Twine's future earnings in exchange for a payment now. Keggs naturally hopes to be well paid for his advice, and is thoroughly annoyed when Roscoe only gives him fifty pounds for information about a tontine payment of over a million dollars.

Here's where the plot begins to unravel. Twine takes the money and jilts Jane. Roscoe jilts Emma, and Cupid is not exactly being served.

But Keggs has been playing a game. Twine isn't really in on the tontine.

Next, Keggs sells the information to Roscoe for $100,000. Roscoe doesn't want to pay and hires a detective to get back the agreement as well as Roscoe's letters to Emma.

In the meantime, Bill Hollister falls head over heels for Jane and she for him . . . having known each other as children. Bill Hollister's name really is in the tontine, and Mr. Keggs has to try to sort out all of the romances and the money. Ultimately, he succeeds . . . but in a way that no reader could hope to anticipate. It's a marvelously funny story with great plot complications.

To my way of thinking, The Butler Did It is one of the five best P.G. Wodehouse books I have read.

Capital! Capital! Capital!

Towards the end of his career, P.G. Wodehouse found himself charmed by the idea of reprising the characters who and plot lines that provided the greatest triumphs in his earlier books. Bertie Wooster Sees It Through is a worthy sequel of that sort.

In the earlier book, you may remember that Stilton Cheesewright and Bertie Wooster had been schoolmates in preparatory school, at Eton and at Oxford. Stilton chose to become a policeman and his career led him to become very serious and strict in his outlook, so that Bertie thinks of him as "that blighter Stilton." Love transformed his life when he fell for the writer, Florence Craye. But Florence is also apt to respond well to Bertie, and Stilton takes that personally. When we last saw them, Florence and Stilton were engaged.

In this story, Bertie's Aunt Dahlia enlists him to come to her country home, Brinkley Court, to help her entertain a family by the name of Trotter. The assignment seems to be off to a rocky start, however, when the Trotters' stepson, Percy Gorringe, calls Bertie to hit him up for 1,000 pounds. That seems like too much entertaining and Bertie declines.

In the meantime, Bertie has started growing a mustache and Jeeves doesn't approve. In fact, no one else does either . . . except Florence Craye. That enrages an already touchy Stilton, who fears that Bertie is trying to steal Florence. Soon, Stilton is also sporting the hairy stuff on his upper lip. To make matters worse, Stilton has a large stake on Bertie in the Drones Club dart championship and decides that Bertie should starting keeping regular hours and keep off the sauce. And that's just why Bertie doesn't want to have anything to do with Florence, she's not only brainy . . . she also likes to improve her men. And Bertie likes himself just the way he is.

Stilton is also the jealous type and quickly turns suspicious when Bertie is picked up after a raid on a late-night bistro where Bertie had taken Florence at her request to do some research on local color.

But Aunt Dahlia has an even more serious problem. She has pawned her new necklace to buy the serial rights to a new story, and her husband, Uncle Tom, is about to have it appraised. She has been hiding the fact by wearing cultured pearls instead, but is about to be caught. Naturally, she decides to have Bertie steal the cultured pearls. And equally naturally, that proves to be more difficult than anyone can imagine and with unexpected consequences. And so the country farce begins!

Bertie Wooster Sees It Through has that nice combination of serious pending threats, irrational fears and hopes, and muddle-headedness that makes for such good social comedy. Like all of the best P.G. Wodehouse books, the language sparkles with original similes, metaphors and allusions.

Jolly good show!

This collection is absolutely terrific. Wodehouse has written better Jeeves stories, and for some reason the editor saw fit to omit a Blandings Castle story, and yet the book is nonetheless wonderful. "The Butler Did It" is possibly the best story Wodehouse has ever written. Which means it is the best comedy ever written by anybody anywhere. A must buy.

I was more disappointed with the reviews of this book on Amazon.com than with the book itself! O.K., maybe it is "post-war angst", maybe it's the Long Island malaise, these stories are a bit darker than the "classics" of Blandings Castle or the Drones Club.

But, dash it, they are Wodehouse and show an important part of his personality and the personality of his wonderful characters. Imagine a Jeeves-on-loan! Brilliant! It proves that Jeeves isn't only Jeeves at Bertie's side.

By the way, isn't "Bill" Shannon (aka, "The Old Reliable") an lovely example of the modern, liberated woman! "The Butler Did It" also takes a deserved, but painless, whack at modern art.

Don't let preconceptions tarnish what could well be "five of the best" from the master.

I enjoyed them immensely.

This collection is absolutely terrific. Wodehouse has written better Jeeves stories, and for some reason the editor saw fit to omit a Blandings Castle story, and yet the book is nonetheless wonderful. "The Butler Did It" is possibly the best story Wodehouse has ever written. Which means it is the best comedy ever written by anybody anywhere. A must buy.

EXCELLENT SERVICE FROM davidh1936
ARRIVED WEEKS BEFORE DUE DATE
I WILL DEFINITELY BUY FROM THIS SELLER AGAIN
Item was securely wrapped in bubble wrap and arrived safely weeks before the due date. I purchased this item as a present and the recipient was very happy. Jeeves and Wooster are in the second story, "Bertie Wooster Sees It Through" (which is so funny!), then Jeeves is in the first story, "Return Of Jeeves". The remaining stories are similar in plot and style to Jeeves and Wooster and feature a wise, competent butler and the foolish young man he serves.

I am still reading this book but this morning as I was reading it my family marveled that I was laughing so hard. (I am more the reserved type....) When they asked me what was so funny, I could barely get the words out! If you need a break from it all, you have to read this book! Wodehouse has such great descriptions of people....the plots are great too! It's like a vacation in your own home.

I just loved these Wodehouse tales - such a wonderful Wodehouse stories- indeed, he's one of the best wits to ever pick up a pen!!! I think in our hearts we all wish we had a friend like Jeeves....so he's the best! Bertie is the lucky one (after Jeeves saves his bacon time after time)! But then again I am such a sucker for all of Wodehouse and the wacky people he created, and will never stop reading his stories, (or watching some of the Jeeves and Wooster on DVD), and you are going to enjoy Jeeves too, and you are going to laugh. But that's not all, you get great word play, you get comedy, you get farce, but you also get human emotions and last but not least, you get a look back in time - not really that far back only 100 years or so, give or take, but at a time that we can remember but without cell phones, where newspapers came out two or 3 times a day, where telegrams were sent like we email and where you could still get away with a clever impersonation! Enjoy! And if you are looking for some more Wodehouse fare, these are a few rare but VERY funny books that you will enjoy every last page of......

Jill The Reckless: A British Humor Classic
Leave It To Psmith: A British Humor Classic
Love Among The Chickens: A British Humor Classic
My Man Jeeves: A British Humor Classic
Something New: A British Humor Classic


Enjoy your reading! Is such pleasure when its Wodehouse!