It's America during Prohibition and shy young George Finch is setting out as an artist - without the encumbrance of a shred of talent. George falls in love with Molly, whose imperious stepmother Mrs Waddington insists he's not the man to marry the stepdaughter of one of New York's most fashionable hostesses. Poor George - he doesn't seem to stand a chance.
How George eventually triumphs over the bossy Mrs Waddington makes for a dizzying plot featuring some of Wodehouse's most appealing minor characters - Mullett the butler and his light-fingered girlfriend Fanny, J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the dynamic Beamish Booklets, Officer Garroway the poetic policeman, and Sigsbee H. Waddington, the hen-pecked husband who longs for the wide open spaces of the West.
Oh, and does Prohibition mean there's no booze? In a Wodehouse novel? You'll have to wait and see...
Recommend this book
Add your recommendation
Only registered users can recommend books. Please use the buttons below to either create a new account, or sign-in to an existing account.
It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him -
For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day -
Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already -
The incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes! -
Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists -
P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection -
A genius ... Elusive, delicate but lasting -
P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit -
To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language -
Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny -
I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music -
Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some -
I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language -
Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work -
To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment -
Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour! -
The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon -
Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny -
The funniest writer ever to put words to paper -
The greatest comic writer ever -
P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century -
Sublime comic genius -
You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour -
The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies, and at one stage had five shows running simultaneously on Broadway. At the age of 93, in the New Year's Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue Knighthood, only to die on St Valentine's Day some 45 days later.