Psmith in the City

Psmith #2

by P.G. Wodehouse

Book #2 from the series: Psmith

Psmith in the City is a comedic novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in 1910 as a serial and later as a book in 1912.

The story follows the misadventures of the charismatic and confident Ronald Psmith (the "P" is silent) as he begins a career in the world of finance at the New Asiatic Bank. Through Psmith's witty repartee and unconventional approach to work and life, the narrative explores the challenges and humorous situations he encounters in the corporate world. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century London, the novel captures the bustling atmosphere of the city and the idiosyncrasies of its inhabitants.

With its engaging plot, memorable characters, and lively narrative, Psmith in the City embodies Wodehouse's signature humor and wit, offering readers a delightful and entertaining portrayal of corporate life and the complexities of human relationships.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Classics, Comedy, British Literature, Audiobook, Historical Fiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1910

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

[Luffy Sempai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Psmith appears in several of Wodehouse's books, in unrelated stories. He is not really the poor man's Galahad Threepwood, but his surroundings are less rich than Blandings Castle. This book clocks in at only 172 pages. It was an easy read. But if it were long, I think the plot would suffer from too much watering down.

I'm quite jealous of Wodehouse's ease in rhetoric. If I could faintly master the way he uses the English language...there are many adaptations of Psmith and his ilk(all Wodehouse creations) in other parts of the world. The way Wodehouse's characters are adapted by various natives from all over the world is fascinating, but here may not be the place to analyze that.

The book is easy, but whether it's easy on the eyes of the mind is a different matter. Psmith and his acolyte Mike Jackson both appear as often, but Psmith is the brains behind the cogs and wheels of the plot. If you are a fan and haven't read this particular book, I can safely recommend it. Before reading this book there have been reviews hailing it as hilarious; I didn't find it exactly that, but I can see where they're coming from. 3 stars out of 5.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only bad things about the Psmith books is that Wodehouse only wrote four of them. The cry goes out around the town "Psmith is the alligator's Adam's apple."

[Lindley Walter-smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The immaculate, verbose, eminently patronising Psmith finds himself, at the tender age of nineteen, entereing Commerce in order to indulge a whim of his father - and not perhaps coincidentally bring joy and light into the life of his school friend Mike, exiled to work in the same Bank by his own family losing its money. Psmith indeed spends joy and light everywhere, and it would be most unkind to call him impertinent or accuse him of blackmail, manipulation, or causing chaos. He also interests himself in politics, like the staunch Socialist he is, and particularly in his unlikable employer's attempts to be elected as a Conservative candidate.

In this novel inarticulate, kind and loyal Mike and the monocled vision that is his best friend Psmith graduate from the Wodehouse school stories to the adult world, and the result is utterly delicious. This is probably the best of the early Wodehouse stories, mostly due to Psmith, who moves with devastatingly unhurried grace through the bleak grey world of London like a juvenile Earl of Ickenham.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Life can never be the same after you have upset a water jug into an open jam tart at the table of a comparative stranger.”

[Graham Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early Plum. Psmith in the City is light on plot but replete with deliciously witty sentences. It’s a balance which is just fine by me. When it comes to Wodehouse style is the thing. The convoluted plots of the later books were merely a convenient peg on which he hung his verbal brilliance.

This is not, perhaps, the master at full throttle, but even a slightly underpowered Plum is more entertaining than most. His benign spirit evokes a world in which it is forever the weekend. And always remember: ‘life can never be quite the same after you have upset a water jug into an open jam tart at the table of a comparative stranger’. Words to live by.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psmith in the City (1910) is my first P.G. Wodehouse of 2021 and was a reread. It has been a good 15 years since I last read any of the Psmith books and my memories were very positive so I was eager to reacquaint myself. P.G. Wodehouse can be reread multiple times. He is the gift who keeps on giving. Not that you'd need to reread his work anytime soon given his prodigious output.

You may know that Psmith is a recurring Wodehouse character who appears in several novels. The P in his surname is silent ("as in pshrimp", in his own words) and was added by Psmith, in order to distinguish him from other Smiths.

Psmith is a dandy and a monocle-wearing Old Etonian. His most notable talent is his remarkable verbal dexterity and supreme self confidence. In Psmith in the City he and his good friend Mike are employed by a City bank. The bank is run by Bickersdyke, a classic Wodehouse character, humourless and pompous, who, for plot reasons, Psmith stalks outside of work.

Whilst unusually for PGW, Psmith in the City has no laugh out loud, cry with mirth scenes, it is consistently amusing and very enjoyable. I eagerly await my reread of the other Psmith novels.

4/5

[Zedder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has some choice moments--mostly when Psmith is caught red-handed and talks his way out of it--but overall I found it much less enjoyable than "Leave it to Psmith". The problem is the plot: it mostly revolves around Psmith's friend Mike--it starts and ends with prolonged descriptions of Mike playing cricket--rather than Psmith's own hi-jinks. I guess Wodehouse eventually figured out that Psmith was a much stronger character, which is why he dominates the later Mike and Psmith stories.

That said, "Psmith in the City" does provide for useful reflection on some of the differences between Psmith's and Uncle Fred's volubility. They are both good at talking their way out of situations in which they are caught misbehaving, but they do it in opposite ways. Uncle Fred lies, to an absurd degree. His talent is in being able to instantly make up stories that explain why it's alright for him to be doing what he's doing. As others enter the situation, he just makes up more and more absurd lies, which somehow all hang together and get him out of trouble in the end. Psmith's talent is completely different. When he's caught misbehaving, he never lies. Rather, he takes control of the situation by *granting* that he's been misbehaving. He then launches into a prolonged account of why his own sort of misbehavior is particularly insidious, thereby making it pointless for anyone else to offer a critique of him.

I think what I like most about Psmith is the way in which his complete ironic detachment makes him impervious to many of the trials and tribulations of life. It provides him with a complete immunity to criticism from others. Gotta love that.

[Katie Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Commerce," said Psmith as he drew off his lavender gloves, "has claimed me for its own. Comrade of old, I, too, have joined this blighted institution."

^^^the only appropriate way to announce your new job, starting now. I will not be taking questions.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

The meeting was in excellent spirits when Mr Bickersdyke rose to address it.

The effort of doing justice to the last speaker had left the free and independent electors at the back of the hall slightly limp. The bank-manager's opening remarks were received without any demonstration.

Mr Bickersdyke spoke well. He had a penetrating, if harsh, voice, and he said what he had to say forcibly. Little by little the audience came under his spell. When, at the end of a well-turned sentence, he paused and took a sip of water, there was a round of applause, in which many of the admirers of Mr Harry Lauder joined.

He resumed his speech. The audience listened intently. Mr Bickersdyke, having said some nasty things about Free Trade and the Alien Immigrant, turned to the Needs of the Navy and the necessity of increasing the fleet at all costs.

'This is no time for half-measures,' he said. 'We must do our utmost.
We must burn our boats—'
'Excuse me,' said a gentle voice.

Mr Bickersdyke broke off. In the centre of the hall a tall figure had risen. Mr Bickersdyke found himself looking at a gleaming eye-glass which the speaker had just polished and inserted in his eye.

The ordinary heckler Mr Bickersdyke would have taken in his stride. He had got his audience, and simply by continuing and ignoring the interruption, he could have won through in safety. But the sudden appearance of Psmith unnerved him. He remained silent.

'How,' asked Psmith, 'do you propose to strengthen the Navy by burning boats?'

The inanity of the question enraged even the pleasure-seekers at the back.

'Order! Order!' cried the earnest contingent.

'Sit down, fice!' roared the pleasure-seekers.

Psmith sat down with a patient smile.

Mr Bickersdyke resumed his speech. But the fire had gone out of it. He had lost his audience. A moment before, he had grasped them and played on their minds (or what passed for minds down Kenningford way) as on a stringed instrument. Now he had lost his hold.

He spoke on rapidly, but he could not get into his stride. The trivial interruption had broken the spell. His words lacked grip. The dead silence in which the first part of his speech had been received, that silence which is a greater tribute to the speaker than any applause, had given place to a restless medley of little noises; here a cough; there a scraping of a boot along the floor, as its wearer moved uneasily in his seat; in another place a whispered conversation. The audience was bored.

Mr Bickersdyke left the Navy, and went on to more general topics. But he was not interesting. He quoted figures, saw a moment later that he had not quoted them accurately, and instead of carrying on boldly, went back and corrected himself.

'Gow up top!' said a voice at the back of the hall, and there was a general laugh.

Mr Bickersdyke galloped unsteadily on. He condemned the Government. He said they had betrayed their trust.

And then he told an anecdote.

'The Government, gentlemen,' he said, 'achieves nothing worth achieving, and every individual member of the Government takes all the credit for what is done to himself. Their methods remind me, gentlemen, of an amusing experience I had while fishing one summer in the Lake District.'

In a volume entitled 'Three Men in a Boat' there is a story of how the author and a friend go into a riverside inn and see a very large trout in a glass case. They make inquiries about it, have men assure them, one by one, that the trout was caught by themselves. In the end the trout turns out to be made of plaster of Paris.

Mr Bickersdyke told that story as an experience of his own while fishing one summer in the Lake District.

It went well. The meeting was amused. Mr Bickersdyke went on to draw a trenchant comparison between the lack of genuine merit in the trout and the lack of genuine merit in the achievements of His Majesty's Government.

There was applause.

When it had ceased, Psmith rose to his feet again.

'Excuse me,' he said.

-------------

Mike had refused to accompany Psmith to the meeting that evening, saying that he got too many chances in the ordinary way of business of hearing Mr Bickersdyke speak, without going out of his way to make more. So Psmith had gone off to Kenningford alone, and Mike, feeling too lazy to sally out to any place of entertainment, had remained at the flat with a novel.

He was deep in this, when there was the sound of a key in the latch, and shortly afterwards Psmith entered the room. On Psmith's brow there was a look of pensive care, and also a slight discoloration. When he removed his overcoat, Mike saw that his collar was burst and hanging loose and that he had no tie. On his erstwhile speckless and gleaming shirt front were number of finger-impressions, of a boldness and clearness of outline which would have made a Bertillon expert leap with joy.

'Hullo!' said Mike dropping his book.

Psmith nodded in silence, went to his bedroom, and returned with a looking-glass. Propping this up on a table, he proceeded to examine himself with the utmost care. He shuddered slightly as his eye fell on the finger-marks; and without a word he went into his bathroom again. He emerged after an interval of ten minutes in sky-blue pyjamas, slippers, and an Old Etonian blazer. He lit a cigarette; and, sitting down, stared pensively into the fire.

'What the dickens have you been playing at?' demanded Mike.

Psmith heaved a sigh.

'That,' he replied, 'I could not say precisely. At one moment it seemed to be Rugby football, at another a jiu-jitsu seance. Later, it bore a resemblance to a pantomime rally. However, whatever it was, it was all very bright and interesting. A distinct experience.'

'Have you been scrapping?' asked Mike. 'What happened? Was there a row?'

'There was,' said Psmith, 'in a measure what might be described as a row. At least, when you find a perfect stranger attaching himself to your collar and pulling, you begin to suspect that something of that kind is on the bill.'

'Did they do that?'

Psmith nodded.

'A merchant in a moth-eaten bowler started warbling to a certain extent with me. It was all very trying for a man of culture. He was a man who had, I should say, discovered that alcohol was a food long before the doctors found it out. A good chap, possibly, but a little boisterous in his manner. Well, well.'

Psmith shook his head sadly.

'He got you one on the forehead,' said Mike, 'or somebody did. Tell us what happened. I wish the dickens I'd come with you. I'd no notion there would be a rag of any sort. What did happen?'

'Comrade Jackson,' said Psmith sorrowfully, 'how sad it is in this life of ours to be consistently misunderstood. You know, of course, how wrapped up I am in Comrade Bickersdyke's welfare. You know that all my efforts are directed towards making a decent man of him; that, in short, I am his truest friend. Does he show by so much as a word that he appreciates my labours? Not he. I believe that man is beginning to dislike me, Comrade Jackson.'

'What happened, anyhow? Never mind about Bickersdyke.'

'Perhaps it was mistaken zeal on my part…. Well, I will tell you all. Make a long arm for the shovel, Comrade Jackson, and pile on a few more coals. I thank you. Well, all went quite smoothly for a while. Comrade B. in quite good form. Got his second wind, and was going strong for the tape, when a regrettable incident occurred. He informed the meeting, that while up in the Lake country, fishing, he went to an inn and saw a remarkably large stuffed trout in a glass case. He made inquiries, and found that five separate and distinct people had caught—'

'Why, dash it all,' said Mike, 'that's a frightful chestnut.'

Psmith nodded.

'It certainly has appeared in print,' he said. 'In fact I should have said it was rather a well-known story. I was so interested in Comrade Bickersdyke's statement that the thing had happened to himself that, purely out of good-will towards him, I got up and told him that I thought it was my duty, as a friend, to let him know that a man named Jerome had pinched his story, put it in a book, and got money by it. Money, mark you, that should by rights have been Comrade Bickersdyke's. He didn't appear to care much about sifting the matter thoroughly. In fact, he seemed anxious to get on with his speech, and slur the matter over. But, tactlessly perhaps, I continued rather to harp on the thing. I said that the book in which the story had appeared was published in 1889. I asked him how long ago it was that he had been on his fishing tour, because it was important to know in order to bring the charge home against Jerome. Well, after a bit, I was amazed, and pained, too, to hear Comrade Bickersdyke urging certain bravoes in the audience to turn me out. If ever there was a case of biting the hand that fed him…. Well, well…. By this time the meeting had begun to take sides to some extent. What I might call my party, the Earnest Investigators, were whistling between their fingers, stamping on the floor, and shouting, "Chestnuts!" while the opposing party, the bravoes, seemed to be trying, as I say, to do jiu-jitsu tricks with me. It was a painful situation. I know the cultivated man of affairs should have passed the thing off with a short, careless laugh; but, owing to the above-mentioned alcohol-expert having got both hands under my collar, short, careless laughs were off. I was compelled, very reluctantly, to conclude the interview by tapping the bright boy on the jaw. He took the hint, and sat down on the floor. I thought no more of the matter, and was making my way thoughtfully to the exit, when a second man of wrath put the above on my forehead. You can't ignore a thing like that. I collected some of his waistcoat and one of his legs, and hove him with some vim into the middle distance. By this time a good many of the Earnest Investigators were beginning to join in; and it was just there that the affair began to have certain points of resemblance to a pantomime rally. Everybody seemed to be shouting a good deal and hitting everybody else. It was no place for a man of delicate culture, so I edged towards the door, and drifted out. There was a cab in the offing. I boarded it. And, having kicked a vigorous politician in the stomach, as he was endeavouring to climb in too, I drove off home.'

Psmith got up, looked at his forehead once more in the glass, sighed, and sat down again.

'All very disturbing,' he said.

Any resemblance of the above to a certain Presidential candidate's election rallies is purely coincidental, as Wodehouse wrote this novel in the last century.

[MarilynLovesNature · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! I loved how Psmith dealt with the boss and especially the Turkish bath scene. Wish I had read this years ago when it would have helped me deal with an unpleasant work situation! (My own sense of humor helped a little). I love PGW's subtle humor with the Psmith character.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This got off to a very poor start. So much so, that I initially thought it was going to replace Bachelors Anonymous as my new "worst" Wodehouse book, and was thinking I'd made a big mistake buying the Overlook editions of all the Psmith books.

I'll put that down to a couple of issues:

1. There's a lot of completely incomprehensible cricket jargon in the first chapter.

2. The early chapters focus too much on Mike, while simultaneously failing to give him any characterization beyond "likes cricket".

3. The prose was uneven, sometimes clunky, in those early chapters, and Wodehouse's prose is a huge part of his appeal for me.

Why this was the case, I don't know. Wodehouse had already published at least 10 novels by 1910 when this came out, though I noticed his prior book, A Gentleman of Leisure, the earliest Wodehouse I've read so far, also wasn't quite up to my expectations prose wise.

The setup here is as follows: Mike (age 19) and Psmith have recently completed their time at public school. (As documented in Mike (Mike at Wrykyn / Mike and Psmith, it's complicated). I decided to skip that/those for now.) Mike is expecting to go on to Cambridge, and keep playing cricket, but due to a sudden blow to the family finances, Mike is instead sent off to work at a bank in London. Psmith, whose father knew the bank manager from school, soon joins him and the book takes off.

Psmith pretty much carries the book. He's a bizarre, fun character. He claims to be a socialist, but is appalled at the idea of riding the tram, and is distressed by a coworker's clothing, among other things. He's a bullshitter, but it's never entirely clear whether he believes his own bullshit. And likewise it's unclear if he's doing a bit of a Jeeves thing off the page, or is just really lucky.

Mike's much more of a normal guy. (There might be some autobiographical aspects to him.) Wodehouse does eventually deliver some characterization for Mike and he turns out quite likeable.

The relationship between the two is interesting. While Mike's definitely the more emotional of the two, I got the sense he was almost a sort of emotional support human for Psmith, though in any practical sense, it's Psmith protecting Mike rather than the reverse. Their supervisors at the bank never stood a chance.

So anyway, despite the poor start, this was hilarious once they got to the bank, and near enough five stars as makes no difference. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Psmith books.

[Girish · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Psmith book and probably like a schoolboy's first week in a new school, I felt myself missing the crazy world of Bertie and Jeeves. That aside, the book was still a humor of elastic bands - a stretch.

Mike Jackson, a brilliant cricketer and a Cambridge aspirant, ends up working at the New Asiatic Bank postal department due to family situation. The good thing is that his onfield partner PSmith too joins him there to 'teach a few things' to their manager Bickersdyke. Bonding with comrades over Manchester United, Socialism, Long tea breaks and Sauna baths, PSmith becomes an absolute pain to manager who is also running the elections. We also get to see a Lord's cricket match which seals Mike's future.

The book had some really funny parts. Psmith's grandiose speeches makes him not so likeable and even a bit thickheaded, even if he is our hero. Jack for his part was more the crowd favorite. Psmith's dad makes quite an impression as the cricket scion and a man of wealth. The descriptions and subtle humor are trademark Wodehouse. The ending quite contrived.

Warm quick read.

[Zen Cho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comfort reading par excellence. I think this is the pslashiest of the Psmith books. Interesting for the stuff about class -- I think it was TFV said that when Wodehouse was writing the school stories he hadn't yet achieved the complete detachment from reality you see in his later works, and that's true for the Psmith books as well.

I hadn't realised when I first read this how strongly autobiographical it is -- the New Asiatic Bank is HSBC; Cambridge is Oxford; Dulwich College is, well, Dulwich College. Found Mike on the Dulwich playing fields very touching. And Mike is Plum: shy, very bad at expressing his feelings, but "essentially sympathetic". I suppose Psmith is also Plum -- all the clever things he would've liked to say, the Holmesesque friend he would have liked to have/be.

How presumptuous all this musing is. Anyway I love this book. It's less problematic than Psmith, Journalist (which has some dreffly dodgy race stuff) and it is SO SLASHY and I love Mike and Psmith and Wodehouse.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Leave it to Psmith and Mike and Psmith, I thought I'd read Psmith in the City—you know, to complete my reading of the two jolly characters. The tale starts off rather solemnly—with a bit of a heavy air—by Wodehousian standards, but it quickly picks up and is rather entertaining in the end; even if it is still, I would say, one of Plum's more serious novels.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

After some effortful reading, I was of a mind to enjoy a light and easy novel. What better author that P.G. Wodehouse for this purpose, and what better series than the adventures of Mike & Psmith. I read a great deal of Wodehouse more than ten years ago, so a re-read feels fresh and new. I’ve always been especially fond of this minor Wodehouse series, as the pair are so charming. Psmith, with his languid manner, pronounced sense of style, insistence on referring to all men as ‘Comrade’, and incredible ability to be so polite that it circles back around to rudeness. He consistently declares himself a Socialist, yet in this book expresses horror at taking a tram and spends a good amount of time at the Conservative Club. (That incongruity tells you a lot about the British class system.) Mike, meanwhile, is a quiet and stoic fellow of many feelings, most of them about cricket. He lacks Psmith’s gift of volubility, but is always willing to back him up. In this installment, the pair would like to go to Cambridge and are instead sent to London by their fathers in order to earn a living at the New Asiatic Bank.

Wodehouse clearly has little fondness for banks in general and the managers that run them in particular. Although I largely took ‘Psmith in the City’ at face value and enjoyed it greatly on that basis, I couldn’t help noting some interesting matters of class politics. Mike and Psmith repeatedly clash with the unpleasant Mr. Bickersdyke, who it becomes clear is a self-made man. Whereas he was formerly an enthusiastic Socialist, he is subsequently elected MP on a Unionist platform. This shift in allegiance is depicted as hypocritical and used by Psmith to elegantly manipulate the man. Indeed, Bickersdyke is clearly not entirely comfortable in the upper class circles that he has worked his way into, something that Psmith unerringly hones in on. Psmith and Mike are both firmly of the landed aristocracy, although Mike’s family are experiencing some financial difficulty. The subtext is clear - toil and effort can never be a substitute for good breeding. Indeed, Wodehouse heavily implies that there is something undignified about hard work per se; cricket and witty remarks are more suitable employment for a gentleman. Yet Psmith and Mike are not mere caricatures and the insight into class dynamics was, to me, more entertaining than maddening. After all, Bickersdyke may have rings run around him by Psmith, but ultimately he ends up in a better position than before. He’s still bank manager, has become an MP, and has divested himself of two very annoying employees who did hardly any work. Everyone wins!

Analysis aside, Wodehouse has an absolutely wonderful turn of phrase and yen for the absurd. Examples abound, I will provide only a brief sampling.

That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith called in his letter the Distant Stare. You have to buy London’s good will.

(I believe that the above is as true now as it was in 1910, probably more so.)

Mr Rossiter had discovered Psmith’s and Mike’s absence about five minutes after they had left the building. Ever since then, he had been popping out of his lair at intervals of three minutes, to see whether they had returned. Constant disappointment in this respect had rendered him decidedly jumpy. When Psmith and Mike reached the desk, he as a kind of human soda-water bottle. He fizzed over with questions, reproofs, and warnings.

“What does it mean? What does it mean?” he cried. “Where have you been? Where have you been?”

“Poetry,” said Psmith approvingly.

If you like the above passage, you will likely enjoy the whole novel very much.

Given the complete absence of female characters (even the lone landlady who receives an early cameo is referred to as a ‘pantomime dame’), there is a somewhat homoerotic air about this sort of thing:

“I need you, Comrade Jackson,” [Psmith] said, when Mike lodged a protest on finding himself bound for the stalls for the second night in succession. “We must stick together. As my confidential secretary and adviser, your place is by my side. Who knows but that between the acts tonight I might not be seized with some luminous thought? Could I utter this to my next-door neighbour or the programme girl? Stand by me, Comrade Jackson, or we are undone.”

So Mike stood by him.

The fussiness of Wodehouse characters with regards to dress is a great joy to me, exemplified in this extract from a Psmith monologue.

”...The moment I concentrate myself on Comrade Bickersdyke for a brief spell, and seem to be doing him a bit of good, what happens? Why, Comrade Bristow sneaks off and buys a sort of woolen sunset. I saw the thing unexpectedly. I tell you I was shaken. It is the suddenness of that waistcoat that hits you. It’s discouraging, this sort of thing. I try always to think well of my fellow man. As an energetic Socialist, I do my best to see the good that is in him, but it’s hard. Comrade Bristow’s the most striking argument against the equality of man I’ve ever come across.”

And I must conclude with a few of Wodehouse’s delightfully memorable one-liners.

Mike proceeded to the meeting with the air of an about-to-be-washed dog.

“...We were legging it with the infuriated mob on our heels. An ignominious position for a Shropshire Psmith but, after all, Napoleon did the same.”

He looked at Psmith with what was intended to be a dignified stare. But dignity is hard to achieve in a couple of parti-coloured towels.

“The rain keeps off,” said Psmith.
Mr Bickersdyke looked as if he wished his employee would imitate the rain, but made no reply.

It’s a pity that Wodehouse never wrote a whole novel of Mike & Psmith’s adventures at Cambridge, that would be just the thing at the moment.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was glad to find that Mike Jackson was still with Psmith in this. And I must have absorbed some cricket terminology during the first book in the series as I immediately recognized "lbw" as leg before wicket (whatever that is, I know it's some sort of out or foul)!

Psmith is much funnier in this second book in the series; the way he needled the head of the bank "Comrade Bickersdyke" was priceless.

Jonathan Cecil was again excellent in his narration.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining, but not the best Wodehouse.

[Renee M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am embarrassed to admit that I inevitably quail at the concept of the early writings of my favorite authors. Especially if, like Wodehouse, their most famous works comes later. No need to have worried here. Perhaps PSMITH IN THE CITY lacks to brilliance of LEAVE IT TO PSMITH, but it is thoroughly delightful, with all the clever silliness that makes Wodehouse such a joy.

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read an article on what modern writers call the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". You know the character type--the crazy, impulsive, imaginative young lady who charges into the male main character's life, shakes it up, changes it forever, and then makes ready to go on her merry way. (Whether she actually does so or not depends on the story; she can also take a third option by dying unexpectedly but remaining forever in his heart.) The article asked the following question: Is there such a thing as a Manic Pixie Dream Guy?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found the Manic Pixie Dream Guy. I submit to you P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith (self-invented surname, silent P, first name varies between books)--a character created to fill, not the need for an interesting romance, but the equally-pressing need for an interesting ally. In Mike and Psmith , Psmith is a young man at a boy's school; in this installment, he's aged a bit and begun to grapple with the adult business world. Book three, Psmith Journalist , sees him ditching dull responsibility and having a battle of the wills with gangsters in New York City, just because he can. He's a man's man (not a gentleman's gentleman, though--that'd be Jeeves) in a slowly widening man's world. In the fourth and final book, Leave it to Psmith , his universe finally expands enough to include a love interest. It's like an extreme version of the masculine coming-of-age process.

The reader stand-in is Mike, a nice enough guy whose entire purpose in the series is to not be Psmith. The first two books follow a fairly winning pattern--a) Mike is stuck somewhere he doesn't want to be, b) Psmith shows up and it's not so bad. But interestingly, it's not Psmith's tendency toward bizarreness and anarchy that improves things for Mike (though that helps)--it's simply and solely the fact that Psmith is in it with him. Mike is an uncomplicated character, and all he really wants is someone who can agree that, yes, this is a grim situation, but it doesn't have to be that bad, now let's go get something to eat. And honestly, can't we all relate? If I ever wash up in a new and lonely place, my prayer is that someone like Psmith will be hanging around saying, "You too?"

This time, Mike's parents have lost a lot of their money, and Mike has to drop out of Sedleigh and work at a bank in London. (Poor Mike--it seems it's his lot in life to clear out of a place as soon as he's gotten used to it.) It turns out Psmith is there, too, for a reason which escapes me but which is, frankly, completely irrelevant. There's not much of a plot--it's really more a series of scenes--but Psmith's commentary is always hilarious. You may find yourself tempted to apply his methods while on the job.

The problem with characters under the Manic Pixie category is that, by definition, they hold all the personality, and their poor partners get the short end of the stick. I always prefer my literary duos--whether they be couples or comedy teams--to have equally developed, but conflicting, personalities. (Wodehouse later mastered this dynamic when he wrote the Jeeves and Wooster series.) Mike is a human springboard for Psmith's dialogue, which is fine, but occasionally I get aggravated by his unimaginative responses. If I had a buddy who talked like Psmith, I'd spend all my free time thinking of witty comebacks.

blog review

[Valerie]

Many people know Jeeves and Wooster. Some also know the Blandings Castle stories. A few know the Golf stories.

Psmith is much less well known, though he has his afficionados.

Note that, whatever his vagaries, Wodehouse never converted to belief in any sort of work ethic. He was a prolific writer, but he tended to regard writing as 'work' in the Pravic sense, in which work is equated with play. He was always strongly opposed to the industrial definition of work, which he (quite rightly) associated with drudgery. Many of his books deal with trickster figures who cleverly manipulate the system to avoid drudgery.

Psmith is one of the exemplars of this tradition. He has a rich, eccentric father, so he's not irrevocably committed to any job or career, This is a real advantage in his own work as a mitigator of the evils of work.

I should point out that the 'New Asiatic Bank' is, by current standards, overstaffed. Because the London office is a sort of nursery and academy for the Imperial bank, people are started at work that doesn't need doing, even if there was less staff. It's kind of odd that, given this redundant staff, the managers are so obsessed with details like punctuality and attendance.

[Charles van Buren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles van Buren

TOP 1000 REVIEWER

4.0 out of 5 stars

Psmith plunges into the world of commerce

February 25, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This review is of the Amazon Digital Services, LLC edition, March 24, 2011. Available free from Amazon.

If you are new to Wodehouse, I would not recommend starting with this novel. It is part of his early work and is quite different from what became his more common style of plotting. The novel is not the same type of zany adventure as found in LEAVE IT TO PSMITH, the fourth, final and most popular of the Psmith offerings.

SMITH IN THE CITY was originally serialized in 1908 - 1909 in the English magazine, THE CAPTAIN. It is a very English story in which the incomprehensible game of cricket plays a large part. Cricket, incomprehensible to many of us not a part of the British Empire or Commonwealth, appears to be an acquired taste if not born to it. Despite the emphasis on cricket I enjoyed the book but I really like Wodehouse. The other main setting for the novel is the world of British banking. Early in life, Wodehouse himself was employed by a bank with little better result than that obtained by Mike and Psmith. I believe that Wodehouse's explanation was that the bank found itself with a surfeit of Wodehouses.

[Peter Tillman]

I suppose I likely read this years ago? 1910 book, so should be online?
Sure enough, good old Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6753
My copy is now on Apple Books. Yay!

And here is the Gutenberg Index to all their Wodehouse: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/auth...
Wow. Lots! And some new to me.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standard Wodehouse fare, and very good. This was different, however, in that it contained no Wodehouse female of any description -- no aunts and no battleaxes and no pippins.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very amusing and readable piece of Wodehouse nonsense, but it’s perhaps not The Master at the absolute peak of his form. First published in 1910, this outing for Psmith is quite an early Wodehouse, with the languid, lucid and engaging Psmith with his friend Mike Jackson both sent to work in a City bank.

There are some typical Wodehousian scrapes (although no romantic entanglements) and, naturally, some wonderfully witty writing; his use of language is already exceptional, but he hasn’t yet reached the heights of genius which led Hilaire Belloc to describe him as “the greatest living writer of English” It’s readable and has a good number of smiles in it, but it didn’t make me laugh out loud the way that some later Blandings or Jeeves and Wooster books do.

These caveats aside, you can’t go wrong with Wodehouse and this is a charming, amusing period piece which I can recommend to anyone.

[Farhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic example of British wit and straight faced humour. Pure entertainment.

[Elizabeth Tuecke · Rating 5 out of 5]

somebody give me Psmith’s presence of mind, lol. would be much appreciated.

wow, but really. hilarious & amazing & I loved. HUGE shout out to the Classic Tales Podcast on Spotify (with B. J. Harrison). It was stunningly well performed & completely free & I couldn’t have had a better time.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psmith and her s confidential secretary Mike Jackson enter the world 🌍 of commerce at the New Asiatic Bank. Mike a superb cricketer alas finds the family coffers depleted and must enter the 9-5.30 life. Psmith also joins him and hilarity ensues in his Machiavellian machinations.

Mr Bickersdyke the bank manager is out maneuvered at every step in a series of escapades ending with Mike getting a century at Lords.

[Ian Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Psmith in the City’ is the sequel to ‘Mike and Psmith’ and is effectively still a Wodehouse ‘School’ story except rather than be set in a school the setting is a Bank and Mike and Psmith are the office juniors. The boys are still too young to have turned their interests into love and sex and so continue in the same vein they did at school with Mike being unable to concentrate on anything except cricket and Psmith’s only interests being insolence, checking his superiors and flirting with the sack.

Although the book benefits from not being set in the school room that it’s hero’s haven’t progressed from being schoolboys does somewhat limit what action takes place in the book. The book is somewhat episodic although not a blatant stringing together of short stories such as ‘The Indiscretions of Archie’ or the ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ and the action is somewhat disjointed. It is however a pleasure to see Psmith out in the world and enjoying his constant referring to everyone as ‘comrade’ leading to him being invited to a socialist meeting and having to flee from a mob of angry costermongers. Clearly not ready for the world (or the world not ready for Psmith) the boys eventually sign up for ‘varsity where traditionally schoolboys can be preserved as such by the addition of Alcohol.

Not the greatest book to come from the pen of Wodehouse but, as a milestone on his path from school stories to his later works of art, indispensable.

[Anoop Pai B · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ever there was a book which stamped the top position on the podium of pleasant read, then Psmith in the City, would definitely be a leading contender for the title. A short book with not too many characters, this book makes for a joyful read to anyone holding this book. What adds to the pleasantness of the book is the simplicity of the story and the honesty behind the characters.
The story is not a complex tower of twisting staircases, nor is it a bottomless abyss monopolised by darkness. one gets the feeling of watching the sunset or sitting on a top notch luxury car and you would not want the story to conclude.
The characters of Mike and Psmith are very real, in the sense that they can be found amongst us. Mike, the incomplex, is a person wronged by circumstances and has to give up his dreams of becoming a professional cricket player. Psmith, the debonair, just wants to make good the air of negativity that was unintentionally heated up between him and John Bickersdyke. What follows is an hilarious account of good intentions leading to bad outcomes!!
but the thing that made me like this a bit more was that the large part of the story happens in a Bank. It was really nice for me to read that, no matter how much advanced we have become, technologically, the crux is still the same as it was then!!

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The jokes and language are already top notch in this early Psmith novel, but Wodehouse hadn't yet figured out how to devise an appropriately complex and ludicrous plot. So while there were a good number of laughs, I found that it dragged a bit overall. Still, it's pretty incredible that a book written in 1910 can be funny to a modern audience. A sample of Psmth's grandiloquence:

"All is not well," he said, "with Comrade Jackson, the Sunshine of the Home. I note a certain wanness of the cheek. The peach-bloom of your complexion is no longer up to sample. Your eye is wild; your merry laugh no longer rings through the bank, causing nervous customers to leap into the air with startled exclamations. You have the manner of one whose only friend on earth is a yellow dog, and who las lost the dog. Why is this Comrade Jackson?"

(Also chalk another one up for my list of books read that include incomprehensible descriptions of cricket matches.)