Ukridge [Mass Market Paperback]

P.G. Wodehouse (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Pennyfarthing (1988)
• ASIN: B000KWN6P4
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Gold, October 15, 2001

By 

MRS P NICHOLSON (U.K.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ukridge (Paperback)

Ukridge is P G Wodehouse's greatest creation. Unfairly eclipsed in the public imagination by Jeeves&Wooster, for the simple reason that like Psmith Wodehouse didn't write that much for the character. But what there is, is pure gold and 'Ukridge' is no exception. No one story stands out as they're all mini-masterpieces. Get hold of it as soon as you can, old horse!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ukridge Romps!, November 4, 2004

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ukridge (Hardcover)

If you haven't met Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge yet, you've missed a treat. I think of Ukridge as a comic character virtually equal to Falstaff.

P.G. Wodehouse based the character on a school friend which adds extra poignancy to the many hilarious tales in this book.

The book has ten chapters, each of which is an entire short story. However, the stories are connected to one another so you have continuing development of characters and plots.

The story is told from the perspective of the long-suffering James Corcoran, an impecunious author who is one of Ukridge's favorite sources of money, clothes, lodgings and all other sorts of accommodations.

Ukridge is a great schemer . . . who doesn't bother to work out all of the details. He's confident that an abundant universe will take care of him. Sometimes he's right and sometimes not.

Most people will be thrilled by Ukridge's career as a boxing manager for Battling Billson, the most mercurial fighter the world has ever know. Three chapters are devoted to that story.

The book opens with a classic Ukridge scheme; he's going to make a mint by training dogs to behave at Ukridge's Dog College.

The second story, Ukridge's Accident Syndicate, shows that even if a scheme works, it may not pay off in the way you expected.

Ukridge tries his hand at being a political surrogate in The Long Arm of Looney Coote, with hilarious consequences.

In First Aid for Dora, Ukridge decides to help Dora recover from having lost her job . . . which she lost because of him. With help like his, one should probably seek out enemies instead! In Ukridge Sees Her Through, Dora gets more "help" from Ukridge.

Ukridge is prone to overstate his position to others. He lives to regret that tendency when it almost leads to unexpected matrimony in No Wedding Bells for Him.

In Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner, Ukridge falls in love and has to prove himself worthy of his love's family. Now that's a tough trick!

You can read each of these stories in less than an hour. I suggest spacing them out over time so you can enjoy their flavor longer.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Corky, Old Horse, April 17, 2005

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Ukridge (Hardcover)

Reviewers of Ukridge seem to be diffident, and the discussion tends to center on their view of one Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, leading light and subject of said book. Missing the point, I'd say. When P.G.W. introduced this large and in charge Man of Affairs in Love Amoung the Chickens, he knew he was on to a good thing, and that they would travel many miles together. When, more brilliantly still, he hit upon Corky Pirbright as narrator and true blue friend of our dauntless hero, he laid a path that he himself would retread many times, in the Oldest Member, in Mr. Mulliner, in the unsinkable Bertie Wooster, and even in the occasional Drones Club Member.

He struck gold, I'd say, in these first sketches of the faithful but tempermentally at odds narrator who, for all his seeming passivity, is yet crucial to the plot. These early stories are a bit much taken together, but they read delightfully when sprinkled in anthologies or as an occasional hiatus for readers engrossed in Jeeves or Blandings novels. Taken that way, some of them are very good indeed, notably "Ukridge's Dog College" (early on done for television) and Ukridge's Accident Syndicate, which unleashes the blue blood of the sportsman that will play so much a part in the fortunes and misfortunes of Bingo, Uncle Fred, and others who like a little flutter, down to the most savvy of them all, the inimitable Jeeves. These stories stand alone, as do most of the earlier PGW bits, being largely written for serialisation or as one offs for magazines, particularly the Saturday Evening Post, but at least three of them tie together to tell the tales of Battling Billson, an early type of the pugilists who later would be so much a part of the world of Wooster, and these tales, especially, show young Wodehouse well on his way.