The Luck Of The Bodkins (Everyman's Library P G WODEHOUSE) - Tapa dura

Monty Bodkin's pursuit of Gertude Butterwick is temporarily interrupted by his encounter with silver-screen siren Miss Lotus Blossom, who sees in him a means of restoring relations with her idol, the novelist Ambrose Tennyson. But Monty is not the only one with problems. Ambrose's brother Reggie has money troubles and Ikey Llewellyn is struggling with difficulties which would tax anyone's ingenuity, let alone his limited brain power. When the paths of these men collide, the ensuing plot complications produce a vintage Wodehouse farce involving London, New York, Hollywood and translatlantic liners. A delicious period piece from 1935.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as ‘Plum’) wrote about seventy novels and some three hundred short stories over seventy-three years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler’s Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for ‘having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged ninety-three, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine’s Day.