Summer Moonshine

by P.G. Wodehouse

ISBN 0140025472 Alternate Cover Edition

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Classics, Comedy, Romance, British Literature, 20th Century

238 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 1937

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

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sir Buckstone Abbott is in dire financial straits and wants to unload his dilapidated country home as soon as possible. Meanwhile, his daughter Jane is engaged to a man who's also engaged to a woman thinking of buying the house but enamored with another man, Joe Vanringham. Additionally, Mrs. Abbot's brother is lurking in the background and Tubby Varingham is secretly in love with Buckstone's secretary. Can Abbot sell his house and get out of his money woes without condemning his daughter to an unhappy life?

P.G. Wodehouse is like a master chess player and his characters are the pieces. While his plots are all very similar, they spin out of control and become unique tales in their own right. All the hallmarks are here: engagements, regrettable letters written in the heat of the moment, mistaken identity, etc, but they come together in delightful ways. You know things will end happily but Wodehouse puts you through the wringer getting there with his serpentine plot twists.

As always, the writing is top notch. Wodehouse peppers the dialogue with gems like "She informs me she can make a substance called fudge but no waffles" and "I regard her as sand in Civilization's spinach."

Joe Vanringham is the archetypical Wodehouse leading man, witty and quick thinking and his smoothness rivals that of Galahad Threepwood himself, a nice contrast to his brother Tubby. Jane Abbot is the typical Wodehouse heroine, strong and feisty. Miss Whitaker, the cold secretary with a knowledge of jiu jutsu, was an added bonus.

While it wasn't a Jeeves or Blandings Castle book, it was still pretty good. If you like British comedy, this should be able to fulfill your needs for a few hours.

[Jason Koivu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished, and I mean just finished this and I have no idea what was going on, but I enjoyed it! Wodehouse has that effect on a fella.

[Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This standalone is set around Walsingford Hall, the seat of Baronet Sir Buckstone Abbot, and which is also the ugliest country house in England (or at least, among them). Sir Buckstone, like many Wodehouse aristocrats, is cash strapped and has to take paying guests in the Hall to make ends meet. But he still owes money to various people, among them Busby, the publisher of his hunting memoirs, who has slapped him with an unexpected bill of over £ 90. But he hopes to sell the Hall to a rich American, the Princess Dwornitzchek. Among the guests are also the Princess’ stepson, Theodore ‘Tubby’ Vanringham, who is in love with ‘Buck’s’ secretary Miss Prudence Whittaker, but misunderstandings have led to a rift and Prudence is having Tubby served with summons in a break of promise and ‘heart-balm’ case. Since Tubby was left in Buck’s charge, if the summons is served and proceedings begin, it will spell trouble for Buck and the sale he is counting so much on will fall through. Too add to his woes, the plasterer (process server) is Buck’s own brother-in-law, Sam Bulpitt (who incidentally he didn’t even know existed upto this point). And if that wasn’t enough, Tubby’s brother Joe has fallen for Buck’s daughter, the pretty Imogen ‘Jane’ Abbott, but she is engaged to the good-for-nothing but handsome ‘worm’ Adrian Peake, who also happens to be engaged to the Princess Dwornitzchek.

So of course, in the book we have quite a few of the elements of the typical, convoluted Wodehouse plot, with plenty of room for confusion, and indeed for lots of laughs. (But there were other classic ingredients missing too—not a single impostor, and no one trying to ‘pinch’ anything, and a plot not quite as muddled as some of them can get.) Some Wodehouse books get you doubling over with laughter or even falling off your chair—this wasn’t one of them unfortunately for me. But that said, it was still a fun read, made me laugh a fair bit (there’s some poking fun at American and English pronunciation), and also had a fairly interesting plot with some things at least that one didn’t see coming. Things go wrong, things go right, people come into money and just as easily lose it, hearts are joint, only to break, but then be joined again—but at the end, without fail all comes right with the world. In Wodehouse land, even if this wasn’t one of my favourite parts of it, things are neither ever dull nor ever unpleasant. It is a piece of idyll; one is happy to be lost in for a while. Three stars.

[Arushi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Exina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining but not so memorable read.
The characters are likeable, especially Lady Abbott. I even felt sorry for Adrian, but only a bit… He deserved what he got.
I loved the jovial hatred between Joe and the Princess Dwornitzchek.

"You don't like the Princess?"
"I regard her as the sand in Civilization's spinach."

What made me upset a bit is that the happy ending of Jane and Joe was told instead of shown.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

gardening/deckchair/dog walking mp3

Due to the weather this uber-pink mp3 reader read was:

shivering/settee pod/dog kicking: periodically out the door to battle with bullet rain/ extreme sudoku-ing.

hah! It can rain all it likes until Wednesday, then it must stop for four and a half holiday weeks ...

[Nira Ramachandran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A frothy bit of summer romance! No imposters, no plots to steal pigs, necklaces or French Chefs, no sinister secretaries or villains of any sort. This one is pure, lighthearted fun and frolic. The cast of characters include the impoverished Bart., Sir Buckstone Abbot saddled with an unwanted eyesore of a country house, which no one wants to buy, and making ends meet by taking in paying guests, his statuesque American wife whose unruffled calm alone provides him succor, their only daughter who falls in love with a good looking guy on the make. Add to these a secretary, who prides herself on her pure English, and is prepared to breakup her romance with a rich American purely on account of his Americanisms, a dashing young playwright, a process server uncle, and a fabulously rich Countess, the only potential house purchaser, and you have all the ingredients for enjoyment. Some intensely funny scenes as when uncle Bulpitt has an accident and loses his dentures, or when three of the guests suddenly find their clothes disappearing and have to creep through the night dressed in towels and sacking, will have you in fits of laughter. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was recently given a book to review for the local paper and found it so gloomy (it is about suicide, I have to admit) that I put it aside after 20 or 30 pages and picked up a P G Wodehouse that I'd had since I was a young man (around 50 years ago) and had apparently never read.
With a wonderfully chaotic and totally improbable plot - it's all sorted in the last chapter - this book is sheer nonsense from beginning to end, but what wonderfully written nonsense.
Wodehouse occasionally has his off-moments, but this is certainly not one of them.

Re-read in Jan 2021. Or rather, heard on audio. The only thing that surprised me was that Jane could ever have fallen for Adrian Peak, one of Wodehouse's most obnoxious young men, one who hasn't a jot of humour in him. Jane's explanations as to why she should love this awful bloke seem weak, and it isn't surprising that her true lover, Joe, doesn't give tuppence for them.

[Illiterate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A meticulously researched study of the fall of stately homes between the wars when some had to take in lodgers.

[Lata · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”

Yes, we have the similar set of characters in this book, and the usual story of multiple engagements, break-ups, miscommunications, benevolent uncles, strong women, mistaken identities etc. (The aunts were missing, though). And I love all of it.

This is a palate cleanser I needed badly after reading some psychological thrillers with disturbing stalkers, voyeurs and murderers.

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have practically everything Wodehouse wrote on my shelves, and I've read most of his books multiple times. I turned to this one for some comic relief in the middle of a much heavier book I'm reading. I wondered why I didn't remember much about this book. After all, it was written in 1937 - this was a prime period for Wodehouse.

Well, I couldn't remember much about it because I hadn't read and reread this one as much as some of Plum's others. Why? Because it's not really that good. Not only is it too strained even for Wodehouse-ian farce, but I found it unpleasant at times. It's a product of its time, of course, but I found the "humorous" racial slurs extremely off-putting. And the hero's behavior falls somewhere between (by current standards) harassment and just being a real jerk.

I love Wodehouse, but didn't enjoy this one. Maybe that's just my mood right now, which is influenced by current events.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Wodehouse's better stand-alone novels. I was amused by the fact that one plotline revolved around a dispute between a young American and his English sweetheart over the pronunciation of various words as well as proper terminology!! As Wodehouse lived for some time in the U.S. this subject was one he knew something about :-)

Jonathan Cecil was in fine form with this narration and listening to the abovementioned dispute in audio added to my amusement considerably!

[Lesli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Wodehouse' very best. If you only read one Wodehouse, read this one. Or Girl in Blue. But preferably this one.

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing, typical Wodehouse. I've read better, but this is good.

[Alex Sarll]

Much of the charm of Wodehouse is the very specific world within which he operates, but the price is that even a slight deviation from the expected elements can be far more unsettling than all the blood and outrage in the world would be from another writer. For obvious reasons it happens more in the one-offs, and some of the examples here I could take more or less in my stride. A baronet so hard up he's been reduced to taking in paying guests while he tries to sell the family pile? Bold, but I'll allow it, though the scene in which a suitor is trying to work out how to wangle himself an invite, and is told he only need put money down, feels a little like a fourth wall break aimed at Blandings. Said baronet's easygoing wife (and mother to the love interest) on the scene, and not a bossy sister/aunt in sight? A shocking formal experiment, but my nerves can just about take it. Adrian Peake, though...an outright gigolo! And described as such! I know that in the stacks of literary worlds they might be taken for close neighbours, but this horrid specimen has clearly escaped over the border from a Waugh book; his presence feels deeply destabilising, and not in the sense of the fun chaos one anticipates. Even more so his patroness, who in her offscreen capacity as "the grit in civilization's spinach" falls mostly within the expected range, but who once she actually materialises feels perilously close to an outright villain, nor ever quite disarmed and rendered ludicrous in the manner of a Spode. There's nudity, too, and a far readier resort to physical violence beyond what can be passed off as a lark; even the romantic obstacles and misunderstandings veer perilously close to the genuinely tragic. Shocking stuff. Still, for all my clutched pearls, Plum's way with a perfectly poised farce engine has not deserted him, nor his gift for the ideal phrase, as when discussing the rebuilder of that money pit of a mansion which the family are so keen to flog: "Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks, Sir Wellington least of all. He was as virulent an amateur architect as ever grew a whisker."

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

P.G. Wodehouse is simply the greatest comedy novelist of all time and this one just proves the point. This is a great little novel, that is both charming and laugh out loud funny. If all you know is the Jeeves novels, this is another good series to come to along with the Blanding’s series. If you are completely unfamiliar, this is a great novel for you to jump in on.

[Ram Kaushik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comic brilliance at its best! Nefarious deeds are afoot at Walsingford Hall, romance and confusion abound and all is well in a world that has Wodehouse to fall back on.

[Shiloah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny!

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a perfect palette cleanser after a downer of a book. It was fun to read about a different cast of characters than the Blandings crowd; the dialogue is sparkling; and the similes are on fire. Everyone (mostly) gets a happy ending.

[Elizabeth Carr · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculous and drawn out so thinly that anything amusing is over worked every time

[WhimsyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me quite a while to get into the story. But it was enjoyable.

[Mauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eu provavelmente vou ler todos os livros do Wodehouse, para tentar achar um ruinzinho.

Esse aqui não é.

É um dos poucos fora dos círculos do Castelo de Blandings e da relação Wooster-Jeeves e é muito, muito divertido.

O segredo não é exatamente escrever sobre coisas leves, mas escrever com leveza.

Você lê Wodehouse, percebe a crueza da finitude humana, a nossa insignificância universal, como somos um grãozinho de areia no Cosmos - e acha tudo muito engraçado.

[Tori Whitacre · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites! Absolutely brilliant. Nothing can compare to images like “Byronic gloom” and “. . . He was on the ground like Nebuchadnezzar searching for better pasture.” Wodehouse takes a plot and brings out the hilarious reversals and irony in all of it, all while weaving in classical and biblical illusions. You have no reason not to read this.

Reread September 2025: hilarious. Balm for the soul

[Deepa T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Wodehouse. I love these short stories quite a bit more than the Jeeves series, in fact. A whole new cast of characters, an upper class on the verge of bankruptcy, wealthy new-money Americans, a few unscrupulous characters and a ton of misunderstanding and confusion. Best book to read with a smile plastered on my face.

[Piyush · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first encounter with Wodehouse.........and it got me addicted instantly....can never forget this one.....!! too good..!!

[Ritika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had expected a Blandings one from the title, but it is a pretty wonderful one-off novel. Good thing I keep on forgetting what I have read.

[Anje Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book so much! In true Wodehouse fashion, there are several laugh out loud moments. This is a super fun read for summer.

[Rohit Kunal · Rating 4 out of 5]

On par with Wodehouse's others. Though the characters and the plot all appear similar to others of his, the way he gets them entangled and manages to un-tangle them is really fantastic.

As far as the plot is concerned, Joe falls in love with Jane who's a daughter of Baronet. The Baronet doesn't have enough money and earns his living by renting out rooms in his palace. He plans to sell it to a rich Princess, who's the step mom of Joe and who also hates Joe and kicked him out of her home a few years back. To add more confusions, the Princess sets off to sail for a few weeks leaving her another step-son Tubby (Joe's younger brother) in charge with the Baronet and leaves her engaged boyfriend Adrian in London (with strict instructions not to go after other women). Now, Adrian assumes Jane's rich as she's heiress of a Baronet and so wants to marry her. Tubby, meanwhile, starts trouble with the Baronet's secretary suing him. Now how will this all end up - that is the story.

I had a good time reading this and laughing at the actions and confusions with clothes being stolen, and a fight at a public place. In the end, all is well in Wodehouse's world.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason (perhaps the daily news) I've been feeling down lately, so decided it was time for a little Wodehouse. I think it was Stephen Fry who said that it's impossible to be depressed while reading Wodehouse, and that has certainly been my experience. This is the usual farce with the usual characters and the usual perfection of tone and style. The only remarkable character here is the American divorcee whose first husband made a fortune in the fish glue business, and who now has become a fabulously wealthy Highness--Princess von und zu Dwornitzchek. Throughout most of the book she is offstage, sailing to England in order to buy Walsingham Hall, the Victorian eyesore and money pit which now-penniless Sir Buckstone Abbott, Bart., is desperate to sell, and which she described when she saw it as "cute." She doesn't come onstage until near the end of the book, but she has been described since the first pages as a monster of imperious control and selfishness. When she finally appears she is not the harridan you expect, but rather quite amiable, thoughtful, kind to the servants, with a sense of humor, and utterly without scruple in getting her own way. A truly scary character. But of course Good (together with Love) conquers all, despite the Princess's best efforts.

[S. Suresh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summer Moonshine in a classic Wodehouse romantic comedy. Set in rural English town of Walsingford, there are no impersonations, there are no diamonds or cow creamers stolen, but Wodehouse chooses to use yet another of his tried and tested comedic routines - stolen trousers - to build up the perfect finale in this predictable, yet charming story.

Hard up on finances, Sir Buckstone Abbott is forced to take on paying guests at Walsingford Hall, resulting in a motley crew of funny characters in residence there. A romantic comedy out of necessity requires a love triangle – Imogen Abbott’s suitors Adrian Peake and Joe Vanringham do the honors there. Lover’s tiff? With her perfect Oxford accent, Prudence Whittaker and Joe’s brother Tubby Vanringham get into a massive row over a misunderstanding that only unravels in the very end.

All in all, a crisp, clean & delightful Wodehouse, made all the more enjoyable by the 1938 Double Day, Doran and Company Inc. edition.