Young Men in Spats (Collector's Wodehouse) [Hardcover]

P. G. Wodehouse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2002

Fans of P. G. Wodehouse's comic genius are legion, and their devotion to his masterful command of hilarity borders on obsession. Overlook happily feeds the obsession with four more antic selections from the master.

Blandings Castle is a collection of tales concerning Lord Emsworth and the Threepwood clan, while Jeeves in the Offing finds Bertie Wooster in yet another scrape-with the peerless Jeeves out of sight, on vacation! Poor Bertie nearly becomes unstuck! Young Men in Spats is Wodehouse at his most sparkling: stories concerning members of the inimitable Drones Club-they may be small of brain and short on cash but they are always good for ingenious adventures. And in The Luck of the Bodkins, the action spans London, New York, Hollywood, and several transatlantic liners, as three dapper young men find themselves in various Wodehousian predicaments concerning their love lives and finances.

Each volume has been reset and printed on Scottish cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth. These novels are elegant and essential additions to any Wodehouse fan's library.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

First published in 1936, this collection offers eight stories about members of the Drones Club and three about Archibald or Modred Mulliner. In "The Amazing Hat Mystery," a mix-up with deliveries of new hats leads two young men to be rejected by their fiancees. In the classic "Good-bye to All Cats," a country house full of dogs and cats rends another betrothal asunder. A major delight of Wodehouse's timeless comedy is his enduring optimism. Jonathan Cecil has an amazing range of vocal dexterity, making both the squeakiest of pipsqueaks and the gruffest of old blusterers equally convincing. Highly recommended. Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) grew up in England and came to the United States just before World War I, when he married an American. He wrote more than ninety books, and his works, translated into many languages, won him worldwide acclaim.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 259 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (October 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585673374
• ISBN-13: 978-1585673377
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wodehouse at the peak of his form, April 21, 2000

By 

ohouse (Bosky Dell, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Young Men in Spats (Hardcover)

Arguably his finest non-omnibus short story collection. Story for story, it's hard to imagine ANYONE writing material as consistently, inventively, and intoxicatingly funny as this. If your knowledge of P.G. Wodehouse is only of the Jeeves stories (which are wonderful in and of themselves), this is a terrifc way to start acquainting yourself with some of the other denizens of his fictional unvierse. Contains a mixture of Drones Club and Mulliner stories, and includes "Uncle Fred Flits By", recently voted as Plum's best-ever short story by members of P.G. Wodehouse societies worldwide.

14 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Spats" Falls Flat..., October 24, 2002

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Young Men in Spats (Audio Cassette)

While I love Wodehouse-he is indisputably one of the masters of modern literature-this particular collection of stories (which originally appeared in Strand and Cosmopolitan in the early '30s) is rather weak. The main problem is that they are all of a piece, virtually every one revolves around a silly young man (generally one of the Drones Club cohort) and his affections for a beautiful girl. Invariably, the man falls for the woman and then due to various simple comic misfortunes, loses her. One or two is fine, but a whole book of the plot over and over gets rather tedious. What makes Wodehouse's longer stories work to much better effect are the existence of multiple storylines which elegantly dovetail a the end, along with smart, clever, or willful other characters to provide contrast and balance (for example, Jeeves, Uncle Fred, various Aunts). It should come as no surprise that the standout story here is the lone Uncle Fred entry. In short, this collection lacks the wit, pleasantly convoluted schemes, and even high level of prose, that one expects when picking up one of Plum's works.