A Wodehouse Bestiary (P.G. Wodehouse Collection) [Paperback]

P. G. Wodehouse (Author), D.R. Bensen (Editor), P.G. Wodehouse (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.G. Wodehouse Collection | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Fourteen tales of animals of extrordinary strong dispositions and the often calamitous events they precipitate.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

To read the 14 selections here garnered from Wodehouse's writings is like listening to the melody of some old ballad after a dose of heavy metal rock. Most of the pieces retain in undiminished strength the qualities that characterized them when they were newcharm, readability, and humor. The common denominator of the gathering is, or is alleged to be, animals; but our furred and feathered and scaly friends hardly figure into the proceedings. The time-honored device of imposing some sort of unity on selections of writingsin this case animalsmay just be a pretext to march out the old Wodehousian troupe of characters and set them to performing again. And what Wodehouse idolater is going to object? A.J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Library & Information Science, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

D. R. Bensen is a contributor for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as editor, titles including: Fore!

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in 1881 in Guildford, the son of a civil servant, and educated at Dulwich College. He spent a brief period working for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank before abandoning finance for writing, earning a living by journalism and selling stories to magazines.

An enormously popular and prolific writer, he produced about 100 books. In Jeeves, the ever resourceful "gentleman's personal gentleman", and the good-hearted young blunderer Bertie Wooster, he created two of the best known and best loved characters in twentieth century literature. Their exploits, first collected in Carry On, Jeeves, were chronicled in fourteen books, and have been repeatedly adapted for television, radio and the stage. Wodehouse also created many other comic figures, notably Lord Emsworth, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, Psmith and the numerous members of the Drones Club. He was part-author and writer of fifteen straight plays and 250 lyrics for some 30 msical comedies. The Times hailed him as a "comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce."

P. G. Wodehouse said, "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn ...."

Wodehouse married in 1914 and took American citizenship in 1955. He was created a Knight of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. In a BBC interview he said that he had no ambitions left now that he had been knighted and there was a waxwork of him in Madame Tussaud's. He died on St. Valentine's Day, 1975, at the age of ninety-three. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Books Ed edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618001867
• ISBN-13: 978-0618001866
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Animal Lover's Anthology, April 2, 2006

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: A Wodehouse Bestiary (P.G. Wodehouse Collection) (Paperback)

Some of P.G. Wodehouse's best stories feature what he affectionately called the "dumb chums." He was an untiring advocate for the underdog, both four-legged and two-legged, and read that way his stories are delightfully subversive. He and his wife Ethel loved their menagerie of "Pekes" as he called their brood of Pekinese, and together they created the Bide-a-wee animal shelter.

That big-hearted generosity wouldn't necessarily translate into good animal stories, but in Wodehouse it does. This collection is called a Bestiary (Beastiary) after the Medieaval collections of animal fables, and is collected from various volumes of Wodehousiana, including Very Good Jeeves, Mulliner Nights, Blandings Castle, Jeeves, Young Men in Spats, and The Man With Two Left Feet. However, these various stories have been collected in numerous volumes with alternate titles (see the lists in Joseph Connolly's P.G. Wodehouse or Richard Usborne's Plum Sauce or the biography by Donaldson).

All of which makes this the perfect place to meet the Master, as numerous other writers have called him. The animal stories are among his absolute best, and they also serve as an introduction to the Jeeves and Wooster adventures, the Drones Club stories, the Blandings Castle saga, Mr. Mulliner tales and the many one-offs, all being reprinted in hardback by Overlook Press and in paperback by Penguin for new readers who will naturally want to pursue more.

Although I first read this exact edition, the one I have now is different, although I believe the contents are the same. Mine reads: Unpleasantness at Budleigh Court; Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch; Something Squishy; Pig Hooo-o-o-o-ey!; Comrade Bingo; Monkey Business (not the Marilyn Monroe movie); Jeeves and the Impending Doom; Open House; Ukridge's Dog College; The Story of Webster; The Go-Getter; Jeeves and the Old School Chum; Uncle Fred Flits By; and The Mixer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A menagerie of fun, September 6, 2007

By 

James D. Crabtree "Doc Crabtree" (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wodehouse Bestiary (P.G. Wodehouse Collection) (Paperback)

From a cat whose haughty opinion counts to a pig that won't eat, these are some wonderful stories. I laughed out loud at quite a few of them and of course the fact that the characters of Jeeves and Wooster make an appearance is simply an added bonus. It made me want to pick up more of Wodehouse's works!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing beastly about "Bestiary", February 25, 2000

By 

Dewfactor "bibliophile" (California, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Wodehouse Bestiary (P.G. Wodehouse Collection) (Paperback)

I got this book from a friend with whom I share a love of P.G. Wodehouse's writing, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am (like many, I imagine) most familiar with Bertie and Jeeves, but this excellent collection of hilarious stories about the doings of the animal kingdom's most entertaining denizens introduced me to a host of other appealing characters, about whom I now want to read a lot more! BUY THIS BOOK!