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P.G. Wodehouse Collection Blandings Castle Series 9 Books Bundle
P.G. Wodehouse Collection Blandings Castle Series 9 Books Bundle includes Titles in this Collection :- Summer Lightning, Pigs Have Wings, A Pelican at Blandings, Service with a Smile, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Blandings Castle, Full Moon,Leave it to Psmith, Something Fresh. Summer Lightning A Blandings novel The Empress of Blandings, prize-winning pig and all-consuming passion of Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has disappeared.Blandings Castle is in uproar and there are suspects a-plenty - from Galahad Threepwood (who is writing memoirs so scandalous they will rock the aristocracy to its foundations) to the Efficient Baxter, chilling former secretary to Lord Emsworth. Pigs Have Wings Can the Empress of Blandings win the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Show for the third year running? Galahad Threepwood, Beach the butler and others have put their shirt on this, and for Lord Emsworth it will be paradise on earth. But a substantial obstacle lurks in the Queen of Matchingham, the new sow of Sir Gregory Parsloe Bart. Galahad knows this pretender to the crown must be pignapped. A Pelican at Blandings Unwelcome guests are descending on Blandings Castle - particularly the overbearing Duke of Dunstable, who settles in the Garden Suite with no intention of leaving, and Lady Constance, Lord Emsworth's sister and a lady of firm disposition, who arrives unexpectedly from New York. Skulduggery is also afoot involving the sale of a modern nude painting (mistaken by Lord Emsworth for a pig). Service with a Smile As a peer of the realm, Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has an occasional duty to leave the Empress of Blandings, surely the most considerable pig in the whole world, and travel to London for the opening of parliament. Uncle Fred in the Springtime Uncle Fred is one of the hottest earls who ever donned a coronet. Or as he crisply puts it, 'There are no limits, literally none, to what I can achieve in the springtime.
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About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,714 books7,144 followersSir 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).
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).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 11, 2026
Arguably Wodehouse’s most memorable novels along with Jeeves and Wooster (4 stars)
While the character of Jeeves is arguably the most well known and enduring part of the legacy that humorist P.G. Wodehouse has left us, my two favourite characters from the Wodehouse canon are Psmith and Uncle Fred, who are both larger than life and hilarious, producing a large measure of mayhem through their shenanigans. A close second are some of the characters that inhabit Blandings Castle, which is the setting of eleven novels and several short stories.
In chronological order (which is also the ideal order they should be read), the Blandings Castle novels are:
1. Something Fresh (1915)
2. Leave it to Psmith (1923)
3. Summer Lightning (1929)
4. Heavy Weather (1933)
5. Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)
6. Full Moon (1947)
7. Pigs Have Wings (1952)
8. Service with a Smile (1961)
9. Galahad at Blandings (1965)
10. A Pelican at Blandings (1969)
11. Sunset at Blandings (1977)
There are also around half a dozen Blandings Castle related stories in the collection “Blandings Castle and Elsewhere” (1935), and one short story in each of the following short story collections: “Lord Emsworth and Others” (1937), “Nothing Serious” (1950), and “Plum Pie” (1966).
While most of the books introduce new characters, it is the cast of recurring characters that tends to be the largest source of humour and farce. Chief among the inhabitants of the castle is old bachelor Clarence Threepwood, otherwise known as Lord Emsworth. He has ten sisters, some of whom make an appearance from time to time in the novels, but his domineering sister Lady Constance Keeble is a regular and usually lives at the castle. Emsworth’s brother Galahad is in some of the novels too, and he’s one of these flamboyant personalities that almost certainly produces chaos wherever he is.
Although there is some turnover among the staff at Blandings Castle, regulars include the butler Sebastian Beach, head gardener Angus McAllister, and secretary Thomas Baxter. Many other characters visit the castle and play a key role in individual novels, like brain-specialist Roderick Glossop and detective Percy Pilbeam. And I have to mention one of my all-time favourite Wodehouse characters, due to his eccentricity and larger than life persona: Uncle Fred, the fifth Earl of Ickenham.
But arguably one of the most important residents of the castle is Empress of Blandings, the champion Berkshire pig who is the love of Lord Emsworth’s life, and whom he is constantly fattening up in his quest to win another award at the local agricultural show. The pig is cared for by a series of different pig keepers, initially George Cyril Wellbeloved, who later defects to Emsworth’s neighbourhood rival Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, a recurring villain in the stories. Many of the absurd situations and laughs in the stories revolve around Emsworth and his beloved pig.
In my opinion the very best of all the Blandings tales is the short story or novella “The Crime Wave at Blandings”. Of the novels, my favourites are “Leave it to Psmith” and “Pigs Have Wings”. Also very good are “Uncle Fred in the Springtime”, “Service With a Smile”, “Galahad at Blandings”, and “A Pelican at Blandings”. Unsurprisingly, most of these feature either Galahad or Uncle Fred. The remaining ones felt more middle-of-the-road to me, but are still entertaining, and perhaps on a re-read I'll rate them higher: “Something Fresh”, “Summer Lightning”, “Heavy Weather”. “Sunset at Blandings” was Wodehouse’s final novel, and is unfinished and unpolished, and as a result it is not really worth reading.
A frequent point of humour in the storylines revolves around imposters, mistaken identities, confused relationships, and failed schemes of enrichment or theft. In one of the novels Wodehouse shares a remark that Blandings Castle had impostors the way other houses had mice. As a result, sometimes it can be challenging to keep everyone populating the storyline straight. For this reason some of these books are best enjoyed when read in single sitting or two, so as not to lose track of the characters. That’s my only real complaint about these books – if it is one - as well as the occasional use of God’s name as an expletive.
The Blandings Castle novels have a sense of charm and innocence about them, and depict an idyllic pastoral setting with an extraordinary set of quirky characters, not the least of which is Lord Emsworth himself, who is frequently oblivious to everything going on around him. Not for a moment are we under the illusion that a cast of characters like this would exist in real life. But the more time we spend with them, the more we come to love their follies and foibles.
These books show Wodehouse at his best, and demonstrate he that has a real gift for wacky metaphors, striking similes, and creating absurd situations. Some are more entertaining and amusing than others. But it’s well been said that “Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already”. For this reason Blandings Castle is the ideal prescription for anyone looking for an uplifting and light read, and it’s one of the best places to return to as a regular visitor.
While the character of Jeeves is arguably the most well known and enduring part of the legacy that humorist P.G. Wodehouse has left us, my two favourite characters from the Wodehouse canon are Psmith and Uncle Fred, who are both larger than life and hilarious, producing a large measure of mayhem through their shenanigans. A close second are some of the characters that inhabit Blandings Castle, which is the setting of eleven novels and several short stories.
In chronological order (which is also the ideal order they should be read), the Blandings Castle novels are:
1. Something Fresh (1915)
2. Leave it to Psmith (1923)
3. Summer Lightning (1929)
4. Heavy Weather (1933)
5. Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)
6. Full Moon (1947)
7. Pigs Have Wings (1952)
8. Service with a Smile (1961)
9. Galahad at Blandings (1965)
10. A Pelican at Blandings (1969)
11. Sunset at Blandings (1977)
There are also around half a dozen Blandings Castle related stories in the collection “Blandings Castle and Elsewhere” (1935), and one short story in each of the following short story collections: “Lord Emsworth and Others” (1937), “Nothing Serious” (1950), and “Plum Pie” (1966).
While most of the books introduce new characters, it is the cast of recurring characters that tends to be the largest source of humour and farce. Chief among the inhabitants of the castle is old bachelor Clarence Threepwood, otherwise known as Lord Emsworth. He has ten sisters, some of whom make an appearance from time to time in the novels, but his domineering sister Lady Constance Keeble is a regular and usually lives at the castle. Emsworth’s brother Galahad is in some of the novels too, and he’s one of these flamboyant personalities that almost certainly produces chaos wherever he is.
Although there is some turnover among the staff at Blandings Castle, regulars include the butler Sebastian Beach, head gardener Angus McAllister, and secretary Thomas Baxter. Many other characters visit the castle and play a key role in individual novels, like brain-specialist Roderick Glossop and detective Percy Pilbeam. And I have to mention one of my all-time favourite Wodehouse characters, due to his eccentricity and larger than life persona: Uncle Fred, the fifth Earl of Ickenham.
But arguably one of the most important residents of the castle is Empress of Blandings, the champion Berkshire pig who is the love of Lord Emsworth’s life, and whom he is constantly fattening up in his quest to win another award at the local agricultural show. The pig is cared for by a series of different pig keepers, initially George Cyril Wellbeloved, who later defects to Emsworth’s neighbourhood rival Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, a recurring villain in the stories. Many of the absurd situations and laughs in the stories revolve around Emsworth and his beloved pig.
In my opinion the very best of all the Blandings tales is the short story or novella “The Crime Wave at Blandings”. Of the novels, my favourites are “Leave it to Psmith” and “Pigs Have Wings”. Also very good are “Uncle Fred in the Springtime”, “Service With a Smile”, “Galahad at Blandings”, and “A Pelican at Blandings”. Unsurprisingly, most of these feature either Galahad or Uncle Fred. The remaining ones felt more middle-of-the-road to me, but are still entertaining, and perhaps on a re-read I'll rate them higher: “Something Fresh”, “Summer Lightning”, “Heavy Weather”. “Sunset at Blandings” was Wodehouse’s final novel, and is unfinished and unpolished, and as a result it is not really worth reading.
A frequent point of humour in the storylines revolves around imposters, mistaken identities, confused relationships, and failed schemes of enrichment or theft. In one of the novels Wodehouse shares a remark that Blandings Castle had impostors the way other houses had mice. As a result, sometimes it can be challenging to keep everyone populating the storyline straight. For this reason some of these books are best enjoyed when read in single sitting or two, so as not to lose track of the characters. That’s my only real complaint about these books – if it is one - as well as the occasional use of God’s name as an expletive.
The Blandings Castle novels have a sense of charm and innocence about them, and depict an idyllic pastoral setting with an extraordinary set of quirky characters, not the least of which is Lord Emsworth himself, who is frequently oblivious to everything going on around him. Not for a moment are we under the illusion that a cast of characters like this would exist in real life. But the more time we spend with them, the more we come to love their follies and foibles.
These books show Wodehouse at his best, and demonstrate he that has a real gift for wacky metaphors, striking similes, and creating absurd situations. Some are more entertaining and amusing than others. But it’s well been said that “Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already”. For this reason Blandings Castle is the ideal prescription for anyone looking for an uplifting and light read, and it’s one of the best places to return to as a regular visitor.
August 6, 2021
An interesting series this. We have a set of stories set in Blandings Castle. A mix of good fun to boring and repetitive. Lord Emsworth, a bumbling fool by many accounts owns the Castle and adores his pig. Throughout the novels you get various amounts of theft attempts, secret detectives and those lying about who they are.
For the most part, they were enjoyable to read, but, after the first couple of stories, the series became rather repetitive in places and were rehash of other stories. Oddly nice to read something different beyond Jeeves and Wooster though.
For the most part, they were enjoyable to read, but, after the first couple of stories, the series became rather repetitive in places and were rehash of other stories. Oddly nice to read something different beyond Jeeves and Wooster though.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews