Welcome to Blandings Castle, a place that is never itself without an imposter.Wodehouse himself once noted that "Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice." On this particular occasion there are two, both intent on a dangerous enterprise. Lord Emsworth's secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is on the alert and determined to discover what is afoot—despite the distractions caused by the Honorable Freddie Threepwood's hapless affair of the heart.Freddie is engaged to mar...

It takes a lot of effort for Jimmy Crocker to become Piccadilly Jim—nights on the town roistering, headlines in the gossip columns, a string of broken hearts, and breaches of promise. Eventually he becomes rather good at it and manages to go to pieces with his eyes open. But no sooner has Jimmy cut a wild swathe through fashionable London than his terrifying Aunt Nesta decides he must mend his ways. He then falls in love with the girl he has hurt most of all, and after that, things get com...

Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge has hit upon a foolproof plan to get rich quick: he's starting a chicken farm. Dragging his adoring wife Millie and his long-suffering friend and novelist Jeremy Garnet with him to Dorset, he begins his enterprise. Complications ensue, involving the taciturn Hired Man and his bumptious dog, supercilious chickens, irascible professors, angry creditors, and divided lovers.

When Maud Marsh flings herself into George Bevan's cab in Piccadilly, he starts believing in damsels in distress. George traces his mysterious traveling companion to Belpher Castle, home of Lord Marshmoreton, where things become severely muddled. Maud's aunt, Lady Caroline Byng, wants Maud to marry Reggie, her stepson. Maud, meanwhile, is known to be in love with an unknown American she met in Wales. So when George turns up speaking American, a nasty case of mistaken identity breaks out. I...

My Man Jeeves, first published in 1919, introduced the world to affable, indolent Bertie Wooster and his precise, capable valet, Jeeves. Some of the finest examples of humorous writing found in English literature are woven around the relationship between these two men of very different classes and temperaments. Where Bertie is impetuous and feeble, Jeeves is coolheaded and poised. This collection, the first book of Jeeves and Wooster stories, includes “Absent Treatment,” “Helping ...

TV’s first ecclesiastical comedy, All Gas and Gaiters was enjoyed by over 10 million viewers on BBC One between 1966 and 1971. Written by husband-and-wife-team Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, it was so popular that a selection of scripts were revised and re-recorded for radio with the same star cast as the television series.Robertson Hare starred as the Archdeacon of the fictional St Ogg’s Cathedral. An elderly gentleman fond of a tipple and with an eye fo...

The peaceful slumber of the Worcester village of Rudge-in-the-Vale is about to be rudely disrupted. First there's a bitter feud between peppery Colonel Wyvern and the Squire of Rudge Hall, rich but miserly Lester Carmody. Second, that arch-villain Chimp Twist has opened a health farm - and he and Soapy and Dolly Molloy are planning a fake burglary so Lester can diddle his insurance company.

Barbara Jefford is the hilariously outrageous Lucia in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the novel by E.F. Benson. Lucia is the uncrowned queen of 1920s provincial society, the Everest of social climbers and the most delicious of snobs. In the pastoral serenity of the village of Riseholme, Lucia and her unforgettable cronies face up to an Indian guru, spiritualism and a cultural usurper.E.F. Benson's wickedly witty satires on the rivalries of English middle-class life have elevated...

“I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!”Having made a bitter enemy of Daniel Brewster, owner of New York’s Hotel Cosmopolis, Archie Moffam (fresh from England) checks out and heads south, where he woos and weds one Lucille Brewster … little thinking. Back at the Hotel Cosmopolis, Archie once again finds himself confronted by Mr. Brewster, who resembles nothing so much as a “man-eating fish.”Then the fun begins.

Wilhelmina “Billie” Bennett, red-haired daughter of American millionaire Rufus, loves golf, dogs and Tennyson—and is to marry Eustace Hignett, the weak, poetry-writing son of Mrs. Horace Hignett, the famous English writer on theosophy. Enter Sam Marlowe, Eustace's cousin, who plays tournament golf, and Jane Hubbard, Billie's big-game-hunting friend, and another romp in the inimitable Wodehouse style unfolds.

William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, is afflicted with a moneyless title. His status has earned him a beautiful fianc├®e, but the stresses of his woefully meager income are too much for young Claire to bear. She has therefore refused to marry him until his financial situation improves—significantly.Lord Dawlish's fortunes improve greatly, literally, when a man he barely knows dies and leaves him a million dollars. Once the initial shock subsides, he is overcome with...

The writing of P. G. Wodehouse put him among the most widely read humorists of the twentieth century. He began his postcollegiate career working in a bank. Very dissatisfied with the job, he began writing magazine articles when he had any spare time. What an outstanding professional decision that turned out to be.Wodehouse wrote a novel, The Potholders, in 1902, but it led to collections of short stories that began a year later. He wound up creating several comic character...