P.G. Wodehouse Collection: Lord Emsworth and Others / Uncle Fred in the Springtime / Leave It to Psmith

by P.G. Wodehouse, Martin Jarvis (Narrator)

Audio Cassette

Published November 5, 1992

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

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A set of Blandings Castle Stories, some fun, some repetitive. If you like Wodehouse, you can’t go wrong with these, a rather refreshing change from Jeeves and Wooster.

[Sarah Clement · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I realised how many cultural references and English characters in popular books, films, and television were inspired by Wodehouse's portrayals until I read this compilation. The stories are short, fun, and light - perfect for listening to when you have a spare few minutes. The actor who voices these stories, to my mind, makes the book. I rarely listen to audiobooks, so when I do, the reading has to be good. Good is a massive understatement here. The voice actor's performance is brilliant. If you have access to the audiobook version, I highly recommend it.

[Ei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to this on audiobook via Audible. Delightful narrator as well as light-hearted stories to fall asleep with.