Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit: And Other Stories

by P.G. Wodehouse

A baker's dozen of P.G. Wodehouse's finest short stories.
     Aunts, engagements, misunderstandings and hangover cures; this delightful collection from 'the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness' (Julian Fellowes) brings together a baker's dozen of P. G. Wodehouse's finest short stories. This beautiful edition includes tales related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of the Angler's Rest; the Oldest Member at the Golf Club; the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge and, of course, the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.

Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit (Very Good, Jeeves)
One Touch of Nature (The Man With Two Left Feet)
The Ordeal of Young Tuppy (Very Good, Jeeves)
Ukridge's Dog College (Ukridge)
The Story of William (Meet Mr Mulliner)
Uncle Fred Flits By (Young Men in Spats)
How's That, Umpire (Nothing Serious)
Honeysuckle Cottage (Meet Mr Mulliner)
The Spot of Art (Very Good, Jeeves)
The Heel of Achilles (The Clicking of Cuthbert)
Indian Summer of an Uncle (Very Good, Jeeves)
Romance at Droitgate Spa (Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)
Sundered Hearts (The Clicking of Cuthbert)

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Short Stories, Christmas, Comedy, Classics, 20th Century

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 23, 2014

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

[Charles van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brighten the Christmas Season with a little humour

This story is no longer available from Amazon as a standalone. The collection, Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit is still listed in the Amazon store but is not available for purchase or download except as a hard copy. The short story, JEEVES AND THE YULE-TIDE SPIRIT read by Nick Martin, is currently available for free on youtube if you are still patronizing that suppressor of free speech and exchange of opinions. The story was originally published in 'The Strand Magazine' in Britain and in 'Liberty' in the U.S. Both appeared in December, 1927. The story has been adapted for both radio and television.

A really funny Wodehouse contribution to Christmas cheer, the story features the usual madcap adventure with several old standby characters. The plot involves Bertie falling in love with a flaming red head whom Jeeves views with suspicion and concern. The eminent 'looney doctor', Sir Roderick Glossop is still trying to decide if Bertie is sane. A long stick, a darning needle, a hot water bottle, a quest for revenge against Glossop's nephew and the unreliable redhead come together to put Bertie in a most unfavorable light with the great doctor.

It would not be Wodehouse if the story was not replete with literary and Biblical allusions. Among them in this story are Longfellow, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare and the Books of Luke, Isaiah, and Psalms.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a very long time since I’ve read my last P.G. Wodehouse book and I thoroughly enjoyed these short stories.
They are funny, witty and absolutely entertaining but - and that was disappointing - not at all Christmassy! Only three of the thirteen stories are set around Christmas and none of them has anything to do with Christmas spirit or will give the reader Christmas vibes.

[Aarathi Burki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fine set of stories by wodehouse, extremely funny to read especially jeeves and Wooster stories. These stories are best read with a hot cup of coffee or under a tree with cool breeze.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selection of 13 short stories - 4 are Jeeves and Wooster stories, the others a selection of farcical scrapes, sweet romances, overbearing relations, mistaken identities... everything you would want or expect from PG Wodehouse. A word of warning - despite the title story, this is not a Christmas collection, but it's great fun.

My favourite was probably Honeysuckle Cottage - the funniest ghost story I've ever read - but all of them are enjoyable. They are witty, amusing, and the perfect demonstration of the carefully chosen phrase. Beautifully written and very entertaining.

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A motley collection of short stories, most of them non Christmassy and only a couple involve Jeeves and Wooster unfortunately.

[Nishita · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven’t read Wodehouse, this book is a good starter book if I may call it, which introduces the many different types of books, plots, and amazing characters that Wodehouse has written. There are a few Jeeves and Wooster stories, a few Ukridge stories, then the Mr. Mulliner stories, and then there are a few golf-based stories as well. A bit of everything in this one little gem of a book. OK, maybe not everything, I was a little disappointed to see that there were no Blandings stories in this book. Blandings is my favorite Wodehouse series, and it would have been great to revisit Lord Emsworth of Blandings and his sisters. But that was my only disappointment with this book.

The title story is not particularly Christmassy, which was a bit of a disappointment. But it does contain two of the most famous Wodehouse characters – Jeeves and Wooster. The story itself is funny, but it’s not his best. The other two Jeeves and Wooster stories – The Spot of Art and Indian Summer of an Uncle are much more humorous and far less predictable. However, frankly, the best Jeeves and Wooster plots are found in his longer books, the short stories don’t do enough justice to Jeeves’ brilliance.

The other non-Jeeves stories are better. My favorite primarily for the unusual style employed is Honeysuckle Cottage. It starts out a little spooky, but then turns hilarious playing around with the conflict between a romance writer and a thriller writer, and then turns a supernatural again. One of the best, in my opinion, and a story that really showcases Wodehouse’s versatility.

Read my complete review here: http://nishitak.com/2015/01/27/jeeves...

[Bert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I said I was never going to read again (in 2016) now that I finished my reading challenge but I did it anyway because, I don't know, the book is festive (actually much less festive than I expected from the Christmassy title and cover) and everyone likes Wodehouse (I haven't actually done any polls I'm just assuming).

[Emmy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of shorts by P.G. Wodehouse and if you like the author you will like this book. His style and plotting lend themselves very well to this format, so you don't feel like anything finished too soon. Many of them are even framed with one person telling another person a story, so the style is anecdotal, witty and over-the-top in the way anecdotes told you over a pint of beer or in front of a fire are/should be.

It's a very light, frothy read, which I'd recommend to anyone wanting to de-stress, relax before bed, or just cheer themselves up.

[Jackie]

This one is a bit difficult to rate. I enjoyed the stories that feature Jeeves, but I didn’t really care for the others ones and I wish that these stories had been more festive (two mention Christmas and one mentions New Year’s Eve).

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last year, my dad started celebrating Christmas in November when he realised that Panetone was available for sale and started snapping them up. This year, I’m ‘starting Christmas’ (used verrrrry loosely) even earlier this year with my first Christmas read: Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit.

I’m not sure why I picked this up, given that I’ve never read anything by P.G. Wodehouse before, but I’ve heard quite a few good things about Jeeves and have been meaning to read the stories. I’m glad I did because this was such a fun collection.

Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit has more than Jeeves-centered short stories. This collection of thirteen stories includes tales featuring Uncle Fred, Ukridge, and of course, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.

My first impression of Bertie was that he’s a bit like Lord Peter Wimsey, but without the brains. But it took me a lot less time to warm up to the tone of the stories and I found myself chucking quite a few times. The stories are mostly poking fun at the British upper classes, but you don’t need to be familiar with how things are in that set to find them funny.

The Jeeves stories are funny (I love how Jeeves is in control of everything), but my personal favourites from this collection were:

- Honeysuckle Cottage: This story makes fun of writing and was a hoot. A “serious” novelist of mysteries moves into his romance novelist aunt’s cottage after her death and finds himself falling into the plot of a romance novel. Can he escape marriage before he finds himself proposing? I loved how the story managed to poke fun at genre tropes as well as self-serious writers/genres.

- The Heel of Achilles: This is about golf and though I haven’t picked up my clubs in a while, I absolutely enjoyed it. A tycoon suddenly picks up golf (in order to win a girl) and absolutely kills it – until the day of the tournament.

- Romance at Droitgate Spa: This story poked fun at snobbery. Poor Freddie Fitch-Fitch needs his haughty uncle to approve of his ‘low born’ fiancee in order to marry. They hatch a plan to get him to approve of her but will they get their happy ending when a past rival appears? I really liked how this story based its snobbery not on just on class but on ailments; it made for an effective twist at the end.

- Sundered Hearts: Another story about love and golf. This time, with a slightly happier ending for the male golfer, but just as fun as The Heel of Achilles.

These four were my favourite stories in the collection, but I enjoyed everything and there weren’t any stories that I didn’t like. This was a brilliant introduction to various P.G. Wodehouse characters for me and I look forward to reading more of his work.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Andra Nicoara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I missed giggling to Wodehouse's stories, but this brought me back on track! Thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of the tales.

[Pieter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a charming and often hilarious short story collection. A few stories are loosely connected to Christmas.
A quick and entertaining read

[Phoebe Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wodehouse, always a pleasure. The writing doesn’t make you question life, but it’s certainly very funny!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was delighted to be given this as a Christmas gift and I enjoyed all thirteen of the short stories, even the one about golf surprisingly. The story about golf, like all Wodehouse, is really about people, what they are actually doing is almost unimportant, Wodehouse will find a way to show you their character while they do the most mundane of tasks. There was also plenty of familiar old Jeeves saving the day while Bertie frets and avoids aunts.
Just the first story is a Christmas story so if you are looking to buy someone an advent gift of all festive tales then this may not be the book for you but everyone should read some Wodehouse and this is a good place to start.

[Todayiamadaisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories — a couple of Jeeves and Woosters, an Uncle Fred, an Ukridge, a Mr Mulliner, a couple of golf stories and a few one-offs — with an occasional Christmas theme. A lot of fun; my favourite was the tale of a hard-boiled thriller writer who finds himself living in a cottage haunted by the spirit of a romance novelist.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirteen short stories, two of which were Christmas themed. The stories were a lot of fun, as always, with laugh out loud moments. My favourite was "Uncle Fred Flits By", which was truly inspired.

[John Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, but be aware that they don't all involve Jeeves and Wooster. (The front/back cover don't make that obvious.) I found that I could read each story in 20-30 minutes, so they fit nicely into my lunch break. They were a pleasant diversion, but nothing really made much of an impression.

I recognised most of the Jeeves and Wooster stories from the old TV series (with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry). Some of my friends have emphasised how much better the books are than the TV episodes, and the people who made the TV series even said the same thing (in the DVD extras). However, when I came to read the stories, I didn't notice any difference; I think that the TV episodes were faithful to the dialogue, e.g. "Expunge it from your mind!"

Some of the stories have a framing sequence, e.g. where people are chatting in a pub and one of them tells his companions a story. I didn't really see the point of that, but maybe it works better if you're familiar with the storytellers. (This would be a similar concept to the Crypt Keeper in "Tales from the Crypt".)

There's a recurring theme where the main characters (young and idle) are scrounging money from their elderly relatives; the implication is that those relatives have plenty to spare (being in the aristocracy), so this isn't an abusive relationship. However, asking for £10 seems paltry by modern standards, and I'm not sure how much that was worth at the time, e.g. whether you could buy dinner at a fancy restaurant for £1.

For the most part, the characters are likeable enough. The only exception comes in "The Story of William", and I think that's because I see the same attitude in modern times (whereas I don't meet upper class people with an enviable life of leisure).

In brief, the eponymous William fell in love with a woman and proposed marriage, but she decided to marry someone else instead. William goes out to get drunk (drowning his sorrows) then gets mournful when he sees people sitting down to dinner in a house.

"The thought that he would never own a little home like that racked him from stem to stern with an almost unbearable torment. [..] If Myrtle Banks had only consented to marry him, he would have had a little home. But she had refused to marry him, so he would never have a little home. What Myrtle Banks wanted, felt William, was a good swift clout on the side of the head."

It's not clear why he can't have a little home without Myrtle (or anyone else). Maybe this is a situation where he needed to marry before he could claim his inheritance, but that's never stated explicitly. More to the point, she was never under any obligation to marry him, and there's a strong sense of entitlement for him to think that she deserves violence as a punishment for turning him down.

William expresses similar views twice more. In fairness, the story then says that he'd abandoned the idea before he went to bed, and maybe this is supposed to be atypical behaviour (because he was drunk). However, I can't really see it as a happy ending when he wound up marrying her, especially since that was under false pretences (i.e. she thought that he was incredibly brave when he was simply unconscious).

This fits into a wider question about whether it's ok to have fictional characters who behave badly (and whether that reflects badly on the author or the story). Personally, I think it's fine for a crime or horror novel to describe murders, and it doesn't imply that the author is advocating that behaviour. However, in this case I'm honestly not sure whether Wodehouse intended to portray William as a villain.

By contrast, in "How's that, umpire?", a young woman goes to the cricket club and flicks balls of foil at the other spectators with a catapult. Lord Plumpton then says: "Personally I would advocate skinning the girl, but if you consider that too extreme I am prepared to settle for twenty years in solitary confinement." That didn't bother me at all, because I think it's supposed to be a ludicrous overreaction, and it's an empty threat that would never come to pass.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

I think it would be difficult not to enjoy a book by P.G Wodehouse. This was a collection of short stories and, while I might have preferred a few more featuring Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, they were all enjoyable nonetheless.

Mr. Wodehouse did his most prolific short-story writing in his early years, and, while I didn't check every story in this book, the ones I did check were all written before 1940. Therefore, while I recommend the book to anyone with a sense of humor, it might seem terribly politically incorrect to many of the younger, more earnest members of our society. For those so encumbered with the modern bent towards social engineering, I think they might be generally happier giving this work a pass. However, I consider it improbable that they would have time for, or even stumble across any of the P.G. Wodehouse works while attempting to keep up with the latest avant-garde literary must-reads and social-media crises which seem never-ending; so it is likely not an issue.

Therefore I think one might well select a time of mid-winter solitude, put another log on the fire, pour a brandy or rum eggnog or perhaps some mulled wine with cinnamon, glance at the reds, blues, greens and yellows of the Christmas tree lights shining through the tinsel and settle back to enjoy these thirteen marvelous Christmas presents.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5. While this book was incredibly funny and enjoyable, in the way Wodehouse's writing is, I found it quite disappointing, too. I love reading seasonal books, and as soon as Halloween is over I start looking forward to my Christmas reads. I actually picked this up on a whim and decided to squeeze it into my Christmas reading schedule.

'Perfect,' I thought, 'I love Jeeves and Wooster and I love Christmas.'

If only I'd known that not only were they not all Jeeves and Wooster stories (I sometimes forget that P. G. Wodehouse wrote other things), which ultimately I wouldn't have minded, but they weren't even all Christmas stories! Though I enjoyed most of them, I often found myself rushing through the non-Jeeves stories because I had bought the book for Jeeves and Wooster. And, to make it worse, there were two sodding golf stories! I didn't actually know Wodehouse wrote golf stories, but if I never read another story about golf I will be quite content.

Golfing aside, the stories were great. The packaging was grossly misleading.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored these sets of stories and I even understood the golf references!
Jeeves and Wooster I watched many years ago so I envisaged Fry & Laurie. Great stories all made me chuckle at the messes these people got themselves into and how they managed to get themselves out of.
I’ve read a few authors who’ve attempted to mimic this author but he is a one off.
I will now hunt for some more of these entertaining reads.

[Capn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's Wodehouse - an automatic 5 stars for comedic value.

It's this collection I object to: apart from the first and titular story, the rest aren't even WINTRY. They're all worth a read, and Honeysuckle Cottage had me LOL'ing in the tub. But NOT Christmassy, or snowy (there's some snow on the golf links on Christmas Eve for the very last story, but that's IT). Lots of little typos and missing punctuation marks, which irks me.

[Hattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Random selection of PG wodehouse stories - not actually all Jeeves (but in my opinion these are the best). Also not really that Christmassy (which is good because I kind of missed the boat on that).

And I drank a modicum of tea, with a good deal of hauteur.

For though his IQ was low his outer crust was rather sensational

But your uncle, ankle

I wish to speak to you Bertie, said the Family Curse.

[David Robert Bloomer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not very Christmassy but...

I thought this would be a collection of Christmas stories but unfortunately it isn't. However it's Wodehouse and this doesn't matter at all. A fine collection of stories, a few Wooster stories but the other stories are all good quality. Highly recommended.

[Pooja · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about Wodehouse that hasn't already been said? That he is a master storyteller goes without saying, but his ability to render the most simple situations into hilarious escapades with his masterful language is truly marvelous. Rereading his stories is such a pleasure! I cannot recommend this author and his books enough.

[Satheesh Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely did not enjoy every one of them, some were just tepid, only moderately funny, and the comedic lines were expected. However, Wodehouse has a way with words that just surprises you; a weird way of putting words together that evokes laughter. I am still new to Wodehouse and have to read more really find out if his humor works for me, but so far, it's been fun.

[Marc Diepstraten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sat down today, started it and finished it. What to say... absolutely brilliant. Everything is already said about Wodehouse. These short stories sparkle, the fun drips of the page. Many unforgetable likeable characters.

[Yue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when I started reading the 2nd story.. the MC was not Wooster. Yes, there are like 3 or 4 stories of Wooster and Jeeves; however, the other were unknown characters. Still, they were mostly fun and silly, just as expected from PG Wodehouse.

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
I'm confused at why this is called the "Yule-Tide Spirit" when there's only about three vaguely Christmassy stories? I'm disappointed!
The Jeeves short stories were all 5 stars and Honeysuckle Cottage was funny and unique, though the others were a bit meh unfortunately.

[Sofie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly amusing as usual. A mix between Jeeves/Wooster and other cock and bull stories about unfortunate friends of uncles and the odd golfer.

[Jeroen · Rating 3 out of 5]

although the book has lots of spirit it is not really yule-tide flavoured. And, contrary to what the title suggests as well, it is not a Jeeves and Wooster only novel. Still enjoyed it a lot though.