Customer Reviews

Tales of St. Austin's

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A collection of 12 short stoires and 4 essays originally published in British boys magazines in the early 20th century. Their intended audience limits their interest to present-day readers, but Wodehouse's trademark use of language and story-telling skills remain in evidence.

The stories invariably feature noble boys learning valuable lessons about life. It's interesting that the only story where villainy actually triumphs (A Shocking Affair) was the only one which was not accepted for prior publication--it didn't fit the required mold. Yet, that story is most reminescent of the mature Wodehouse.

This moralistic emphasis infects such characters as Charteris. A delightfully unorthodox character in the Pothunters, he appears here as a typical schoolboy athlete who learns his lesson after breaking school rules and reforms.

The stories are still worth reading for Wodehouse fans, and who else could dream up the frauds connected with the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich Supply Company? However, readers are likely to be baffled by the contemporary slang, especially in the description of school sports.

This is Sir Pelham's third book, and first collection of stories, with three essays at the end. Like his first two novels, the stories are pleasant but extremely weak tales of misbehaving schoolboys, mostly of historical interest only. There are a couple of hints of the mature Wodehouse in the story "Author!", but it quickly degenerates to his usual formula. I found the essay "Work" intriguing, especially for the claim, "People who ought to know better will tell you that Virgil is hard." "The Tom Brown Question" is an amusing parody of Homeric scholarship, with an interesting observation about the original Flashman.