Big Money

by P.G. Wodehouse

The extraordinary Overlook Wodehouse series continues, with Big Money , one of Wodehouse's most irresistible comic tales. When Lord Biskerton--bearing only the beginnings of a mustache and a noble distain for work, and his friend Berry Conway, who sadly succumbed to economic pressure to become the secretary to American millionaire T. Paterson Frisby, seek Ann Moon, Frisby's beautiful niece and heiress for their mutual betterment, the results are unforgettable.

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

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

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]

Berry Conway falls in love at first sight with a girl named Ann Moon. Too bad she's already engaged to his best friend, "Biscuit" Biskerton. Fortunately, Biskerton is also engaged to a girl named Kitchie Valentine. Throw in a subplot about a penniless noble and a copper mine that may or may not be worthless and watch things come together...

For me, a P.G. Wodehouse novel is like a drive down a familiar road to a well-loved destination. You already know the way but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Big Money has all the usual Wodehouse plot elements, like broken engagements, misunderstandings, and mistaken identity, and still manages to craft a new and enjoyable tale. Even though I had a good ideal how things were going to go down, the plot twists kept me interested. I love good usage of a fake beard.

Even though he breaks most of the supposed rules of good writing, Wodehouse clearly knows how to put pen to paper. There are so many subtly hilarious throwaway lines in his books. Like these:

He looked at her like a cow examining a turnip.
So next year you'll turn 27 and, if my figures are correct, 28 the following year.
I haven't a bean. I only know what a pound is by here-say.


As with most Wodehouse's, I can't help but think that the entire genre of romantic comedy owes old P.G. a huge debt. Wodehouse was perfecting the art before television was even around. While this isn't one of my favorite P.G. Wodehouse books by any means, it's still a good read for people who enjoy dry British humor and stories resembling musical comedies without the music.

[Jason Koivu]

Written after he had already begun his Jeeves & Wooster series, Big Money is pure Wodehouse! The circular, interconnected plot would do Ouroboros proud! The way characters fed into and inadvertently foiled a fellow's plans was delicious! I could have done without so much repeated exposition and perhaps a scene or two could have been tighter, or thrown out altogether, but these are minor quibbles. I also appreciate Big Money for giving me the opportunity to use the word quibble.

[Chas Bayfield]

I saw two guys on a tube and one was reading an extract of this to the other and they were both howling with laughter. I bought it and became the bloke howling with laughter on a train. Want to laugh out loud in public? Read this book.

[F.R.]

I chanced upon a piece the other week which said, and I paraphrase here, that if you read one of Wodehouse’s major series – Jeeves or Blandings – then you’re pretty much guaranteed pleasure, but if you wander off the beaten track you’re taking your life into your own hands. I’m not sure I’d agree. My experience has been that, in the main, no matter which Wodehouse you pick up you are more than likely to have a pip and a dandy in your hands.

This one has impoverished members of the aristocracy, unscrupulous businessman, star crossed lovers, a copper mine which is valueless (or is it?) and some of the finest one-liners you will ever find in any book written in English.

[John]

Biscuit, Berry and Ann Moon are a triangle of laughter. Biscuit is engaged to Ann a wealthy woman. He is a Lord but without funds. Poor Berry is working as a secretary for Frisby who scams out of what he thinks is a worthless mine in Arizona.

The suburbs of London become a dangerous place for Biscuits father who goes twice losing his hat and then the unscrupulous Mr Hoke holds him hostage. This is a laugh a minute of silliness and some very funny lines. Like I shot a flask into the air:
It fell to earth, I knew not where.

Pick axes in suburbia. Swans night sleep disrupted. Lies about being a secret agent. Imaginative and just plain funny.

[Wesley Rinehart]

I was listening to this while doing yard work. My wife kept asking what I was laughing at. So many funny one liners, so many funny scenes.

[Nancy]

Typical shenanigans in this stand-alone, but oh! the wordplay and the absurdities.

[Barry]

More clever silliness from the master of silly cleverness.

[Katie Hanna]

No one makes financial fraud quite so amusing as Wodehouse

CW: casual racism

[Mrs]

Splendid.

[Jeff Crompton]

My wife practically insisted that I read something light after my last couple of reads, so I pulled this off the shelf. I've read it before, as I have almost all Wodehouse, but not for a long time, and I didn't remember many details.

Well, it's prime Wodehouse. There's lots of silliness and plenty of misunderstandings, but the right young women end up with the right young men, the hero ends up with a windfall of cash, and the bad guys get what's coming to them - in a mild, Wodehousian way.

[Gabe Nowlin]

Amazing. One of his best. The amount of times I laughed out loud and shared quotes was concerning. 😂

[Dawn C.]

This book began with an expectation of a great story, and the story while reading promised a good outcome. Unfortunately, the ending was disappointing.

[pierre bovington]

Never bothered with his work prior to Audible free deal. It gives a glimpse in into the 1930s and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld]

"When the poet Bunn (1790-1860) spoke of the heart being bowed down by weight of woe, he spoke, of course, as poets will, figuratively. Fortunately for the security of our public vehicles, grief has no tonnage. If the weight of human sorrow had been a thing of actual pounds and ounces, the Number Three omnibus which shortly before 8:30 p.m. set Lord Biskerton down at the corner of Croxleigh Road, Valley Fields, could never have made its trip from London. It must have faltered and stopped, and its wheels would have buckled under it. For the Biscuit was a heavy-hearted young man." (251)

I snuck in another Wodehouse, as one does. Big Money has many of the elements of a great Wodehouse novel: criss-crossed romance, misunderstandings, unfortunate familial relations, and deceptive double-crossings. It's a lot of fun, even if the plot is, at times, a bit uneven (and the ending could have been much better).

[Robert Burgess]

Hilarious!

[Perry Whitford]

Two old school chums meet for the first time in three years at the Drones only to discover that each has fallen upon hard times. Berry Conway lost his inheritance and has been working as a lowly secretary, while Lord 'Biscuit' Biskerton hasn't got a penny.

It's fortunate that rich, young and beautiful Ann Moon is holidaying in London from New York. It's unfortunate that they both fall in love with her. Also unfortunate are the methods they adopt to win her affection. More unfortunate still, one of them really is in love with her.

Unscrupulous businessmen pulling dirty tricks to get their hands on a copper mine, an obnoxious false beard and two sneering swans are just a few of the daffy delights in a particularly head-spinning plot, even by Wodehousian standards.

And then, as always, there is those sublimely comic similes of his, such as:

'Lord Hoddesdon felt like a tiger which has hoped for a cut off the joint and has been handed a cheese straw'

and,

'he groaned slightly and winced, like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch.'

An eternity spent reading Wodehouse would be the polar opposite of poor Prometheus's fate.

[John Frankham]

A wonderfully humorous Wodehouse, from 1931. Don't stick just to Wooster and Blandings, Wodehouse stand-alone novels are just as funny. I was laughing out loud many many times at this.

Thee GR blurb:

'Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire - but that doesn't stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to 'Biscuit', Lord Biskerton, who doesn't have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann - just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine. In this typically hilarious novel by the master of light comedy, life can sometimes become a little complicated.

Oh, and Berry has been left a lot of shares in the Dream Come True copper mine. Of course they're worthless... aren't they?'

[Ben Taylor]

2025: In my top five of Wodehouse's novels, easily. Nobody tangles, untangles, and then re-tangles the plot threads like Wodehouse. Repeatedly laughed out loud. Again.

*Original Review*
First of what will surely be more of Wodehouse for me. Crisp, witty dialogue between characters that are ludicrous---to the benefit of the reader. Wodehouse is known for his incredible handle on prose apprently, and I am certainly impressed.

[Leslie]

4.5*

One of Wodehouse's best stand-alone books, or so I think so far (I haven't read them all yet). Jonathan Cecil is in top form narrating this audiobook edition.

[Sawan]

Haven't laughed out loud while reading a book in a while. Absolutely amazing read!

[Illiterate]

I’m a bit foggy on the facts but I fancy the critic S. T. Coleridge, or some equally brainy cove, said: “Plum’s spiffing book delivers the jollies.”

[Mike]

A standalone from Wodehouse's classic period (between the wars; this came out in 1931). It does briefly feature a minor character who was also in Sam in the Suburbs , the house agent "of druidical aspect," Mr Cornelius, and the central characters are pretty much his standard ones under different names, but he has fun with them, and so did I.

Wodehouse wrote several books with "money" in the title. As well as this book, there's Uneasy Money, Money in the Bank and Money for Nothing. His father's pension from the civil service, paid in Indian rupees because of his service in the East, had been suddenly devalued just before Wodehouse could go to university, so he knew about being a young man with a good education but minimal skills and little income, and many of his young heroes (and heroines) are stuck in this way. The typical plot involves them somehow obtaining "the needful" via comeuppance given to their stuffy, more prosperous elders, and this book has that typical plot, though with some twists. The wealthy man here decides to rip off his impoverished secretary, whose aunt left him what he believes to be a worthless mine, by buying it for less than its actually considerable worth. Meanwhile, the secretary has, by complete coincidence and without knowing who she is (or her name), fallen in love with his boss's niece, who is (unbeknown to him) engaged to a close friend of his.

There's the usual tangle of multiple coincidental relationships between all of the cast members, and the usual meetings by happenstance; the hero meets his beloved three times, all briefly, and all of them involve coincidence. At this point, still not knowing her name, he proposes (which is why I give this my "thin-romance" tag). Also, of course, he has assumed a false identity, and his friend has assumed a disguise (to avoid his creditors), and everything is very complicated in the Mighty Wodehouse Manner. Courage and cleverness and a decent helping of good luck are required to untangle it all.

It's fun, though, and the prose sparkles, and I enjoyed it.

[R.L.]

I have no idea why it took me so long to finish this, because it was a blast all the way 😂 It's crackers, even for Wodehouse; and as is customary with him, I laughed out loud every few pages. I wouldn't necessarily call it my favorite of his works—unlike something like Jill the Reckless, where there's a relatable MC and a fabulous romance to root for, this is one of those books that made me groan regularly at literally everyone's dysfunctional choices, but also kept me riveted because I wanted to see how the chaos would collide. It does contain some of the best plot work I've ever seen in a Wodehouse book, though. The number of threads and arcs going at once that somehow all came together was pretty staggering. He's goofy, but he's brilliant.

It was interesting coming to this after not having read any new Wodehouse in a hot minute—I'd forgotten how certain aspects of the time period, like casual misogyny or colonialism being normal, can poke through sometimes. It doesn't come across like an endorsement of those things (i.e. Biskerton, who makes most of those types of those remarks, is clearly depicted as having double standards and zero self awareness), but there were a lot more of them than I remembered from some of his other titles I've read.

In conclusion, I laughed lots. I might not read it again, but that's because there are so many more Wodehouse books to get to in one lifetime 😂

[Karen (Living Unabridged)]

Frothy and ridiculous: exactly what you want in a Wodehouse book. This is a free-standing novel (not part of the Blandings or Jeeves collections) but it's written like Bertie Wooster or Freddie might pop in any minute.

(Note: it is of its time. There were definitely a few off lines that made me wince. It's not constant, and they are thoughtless rather than malicious, but modern readers should be aware.)

[Caroline Parkinson]

Clever writing and a wildly entertaining plot, but it felt chopped off at the end before the climax had fully wound down. The characters were enjoyable but not really very good in a moral sense, which I'm finding very thought provoking as I think back about the story. I'm also discovering that a lack of openness and communication really stress me out, and this book certainly abounded in both lol. Overall I enjoyed it and I'll have to mull over the moral aspects some more.

[Faiz]

Ruddy marvelous this! There is a reason you pick up a Wodehouse - it's the predictability and as I read somewhere - 'nothing bad ever happens in a Wodehouse'. There is of course the odd aunt that gets throws in (and we all know that aunts are best kept at arm's lenght). Read this on my flight journeys (at the expense of looking like an idiot, holding a book and giggling in public). My first 'non-Jeeves' Wodehouse book and it did not disappoint. A solid 4.5/5.

[Vivek]

A classic Wodehouse comedy of errors with Berry Conway and Lord Biskerton or Biscuit as the main protagonists. No Jeeves or Wooster here but full of classic Wodehouse lines. "She gazed at Berry with stolid affection, like a cow inspecting a turnip." Overall a great light read.

[Beau Stucki]

A jaunty Wodehouse affair at the four-star level till a single conversation about romantic engagements near the end tacks on that fifth and final star

[Lynn]

There's nothing to criticize here. Solid, funny Wodehouse with several perfectly constructed sentences