Utterly Uncle Fred

Uncle Fred #0.5 & 2-4

by P.G. Wodehouse

Whenever Uncle Fred arrives in London, problems get solved, true lovers are reunited, and his nephew Pongo goes into spasms.

Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, is back “to spread sweetness and light” wherever he goes . . . much to the dismay of his nephew Pongo. Whether disguised as an eminent nerve specialist helping the ailing upper class, an anesthesiologist ready to help clip a parrot’s claws, a major returned from an exploration of Brazil, or simply George Robinson of 14 Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich, Uncle Fred is always available to help people in need (even more so if a false identity is involved). Included are three novels—Cocktail Time, Uncle Dynamite, and Service With a Smile—and the short story “Uncle Fred Flits By.”

Genres: Humor, Classics

800 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 22, 2012

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnibus. The way to go when reading Wodehouse. Collects the short story Uncle Fred Flits By, as well as three full-length novels (Uncle Dynamite (3 stars), Cocktail Time (5 HUGE stars), and Service With a Smile (4 stars).

A very easy read, really funny as well. Don't let the book's page count deter you. The pages go by fast!

Like it? Then check out also the indispensable The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology from Everyman's Library.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncle Fred is, of course, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, a man who believes in spreading sweetness and light wherever he goes. In the short story that started his saga, and in three of the novels that follow, he shows his gift for impersonation, his quick-wittedness, and his shortage of moral scruple as he tries to bring couples together, rather like an upper-class Jeeves. A wonderful collection.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

One short story and three novels featuring good old Uncle Fred. He has, to say the least, a zest for life. A fun read with smiles all the way through.

What is it about British authors? Wodehouse, Dickens, Austen, Trollope. They are such fun, pleasant reads.

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://superfluousreading.wordpress....

[LordSlaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume contains three novels and a short story, "Uncle Fred Flits By," Uncle Dynamite, Cocktail Time, and Service With A Smile, each of which is well written and deftly plotted, each of which is a lightly entertaining and a brisk read. Uncle Fred, in his program of spreading sweetness and light and providing service with a smile (in short, helping people out of sticky situations), reconciles engaged couples, helps people acquire money, sorts out domestic situations, and other adventures. A brew of typical Wodehousian situations, snafus, comic misunderstandings, snappy dialogue, and witty observations. Good stuff.

[Somdutta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This omnibus is a humorous collection of stories of Uncle Fred spreading "sweetness and light". He has a solution i.e. a way out of any pickle that people associated with him and have shared with him their circumstances and state of affairs, have got into. However, few are left behind. He cannot make everyone happy but he tries his best to cater to everyone's well-being.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful!

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just re- discovered Wodehouse. Highly amusing little short stories.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Wodehouse. What's not to like?

[Amie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the stuff.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has taken a bit to straighten out the lingo. It is laugh out loud funny.