Looking for PG Wodehouse books? Here are some side-splitting suggestions for both experienced Wodehouse fans and novices.
PG Wodehouse books
How much fun can you have with PG Wodehouse? Oodles. I’ve read many of the master’s works – although never enough. On the way, I’ve reviewed quite a few PG Wodehouse books, and collected quotes that tickled my fancy. Here are links to a few of my reviews.
Jeeves and Wooster
The Jeeves and Wooster stories are rightly famous. Here are a few I loved. Click on the links for reviews and quotes:
- Aunts aren’t Gentlemen – one of the funniest of the Jeeves and Wooster stories.
- Thank you, Jeeves – another of my absolute favourites
- Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit – a plot “as full of curves as a scenic railway”, with some of Wodehouse’s funniest scenes.
- Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves – not my favourite of the PG Wodehouse books but still hilarious.
- Jeeves in the Offing – a masterpiece through and through, featuring notably eclectic vocabulary.
- Right Ho, Jeeves. Do things go well when Bertie Wooster tries to do without Jeeves? No, they don’t.
- Much Obliged, Jeeves – a near-perfect PG Wodehouse book that includes Bertie Wooster in an existential mood.
- The Inimitable Jeeves – one of the first Jeeves and Wooster novels, published in 1923.
- Ring for Jeeves a masterpiece. The only Jeeves and Wooster story in which Bertie Wooster does not appear – but a certain Bill Rowcester (pronounced Rooster) does. Bill Rowcester has many Bertie-Wooster-like characteristics.
My father’s Folio Society collection of PG Wodehouse books
The Blandings Castle Series
I have also reviewed the six Blandings Castle novels by PG Wodehouse in the Folio Society edition. These are in rough chronological order.
- Summer Lightning – “scales the highest peaks of comedic excellence”.
- Heavy Weather – features a magnificently absurd love-triangle.
- Uncle Fred in the Springtime – starring Uncle Fred, the ultimate harbinger of chaos.
- Full Moon – “one of the most full-blooded laugh-out-loud contributions to the Blandings Castle canon”
- Pigs have Wings – “To immerse oneself in the serene calm of the Somerset countryside is a delight”
- Service with a smile “Uncle Fred… permeates the entire narrative like a benevolent deity”
Uncle Dynamite and others
There are more than ninety PG Wodehouse books. The master also wrote forty plays and two hundred short stories. The Jeeves and Wooster and Blandings Castle series are perhaps the best known. I’ve read a couple of others reviewed on this site:
- Uncle Dynamite – starring the benevolent but awesomely, destructively chaotic Uncle Fred, also known as Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham. One of Wodehouse’s most brilliant comic creations, he also features in short stories including the wonderful Uncle Fred Flits by – see below.
- The Plums of PG Wodehouse – a selection of 14 PG Wodehouse short stories, including Uncle Fred Flits By – one of the funniest Wodehouse stories I have read.
- Wodehouse on Authors – how the short story The Clicking of Cuthbert reveals PG Wodehouse’s dislike of wannabe novelists showing him their work.
I’ve also read the first two books in the “Psmith” series, Mike and Psmith in the City. Many Wodehouse fans love Psmith. An early PG Wodehouse creation, dating from 1909 to 1923, he is a languid old Etonian we first meet as a schoolboy and subsequently as a young man in the City. The Psmith books are not amongst my favourite PG Wodehouse books, so I haven’t blogged about them here.
PG Wodehouse books: where to begin
My post “How to read PG Wodehouse” contains all the further resources you need!
What to do next
If you like PG Wodehouse you may enjoy my black comedy series, Seven Hotel Stories. My hero Ms N has problem-solving skills she may well have learned from Jeeves – or perhaps from Sherlock Holmes. You can use the “look inside” feature to read the beginning. Have fun!
