A Prefect's Uncle [Paperback]

P.G. Wodehouse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2006

Marriott walked into the senior day-room, and, finding no one there, hurled his portmanteau down on the table with a bang. The noise brought William into the room. William was attached to Leicester’s House, Beckford College, as a mixture of butler and bootboy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: BiblioBazaar (November 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142645077X
• ISBN-13: 978-1426450778
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,461,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars New School, Similar Problems, February 3, 2009

By 

Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Prefect's Uncle (Paperback)

"A Prefect's Uncle" was the second book that P. G. Wodehouse had published. As with "The Pothunters" it is a story which features boys at a school as the main characters. It was first published in the U.K. on September 11, 1903, and this time it takes place at Beckford College. Though in some ways improved over his first published book, there are many of the same problems with this story as existed in his first book.

This story focuses on Gethryn, the new Prefect of Leicester's House at Beckford college. The title refers to his uncle, Reginald Farnie, who as it turns out is four years younger than he is, and is coming to attend the same school and be in the same house. Farnie, as he is generally referred to, gets up to a fair amount of mischief in the first third of the book, but then is almost completely absent from the rest of the book, though his actions have consequences which impact Gethryn's life for most of the book. Another key character is Gethryn's housemate, Marriott, who also has a new student to look out for, Percy V. Wilson, who is the son of a friend of a friend of his aunt.

As with "The Pothunters", the title actually doesn't have too much to do with what goes on in the book, though certainly the uncle causes more problems than there was pothunting in the first book. Both books suffer from a dizzying cast of characters, some of which are still being introduced in the final chapter, though once again this book manages to keep the focus on a fewer number of them for most of the book, which is definitely an improvement. Another similarity between the two books is that athletics is a key ingredient in both stories. It was running in "The Pothunters" which dominated the action, and in "A Prefect's Uncle" it is cricket which fills a lot of the pages. One key difference between the books is that this book avoids having key action take place out of the view of the reader, which is probably the biggest improvement over Wodehouse's first book.

In spite of these improvements, this is still a substandard Wodehouse, and those who know his works well can easily imagine the kinds of issues the uncle would have gotten into had this book been written later in Wodehouse's career when he was at his peak. Thus I give this the same star rating of two-stars that I gave the first book, though in this case I am rounding down instead of up. This is definitely a Wodehouse book, but it is not one of the great ones.