The Heart of a Goof

(Hardback)

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Had his only contribution to literature been Lord Emsworth and Blandings Castle, his place in history would have been assured. Had he written of none but Mike and Psmith, he would be cherished today as the best and brightest of our comic authors. If Jeeves and Wooster had been his solitary theme, still he would be hailed as The Master. If he had given us only Ukridge, or nothing but recollections of the Mulliner family, or a pure diet of golfing stories, Wodehouse would nonetheless be considered immortal. That he gave us all those and more - so much more - is our good fortune and a testament to the most industrious, prolific and beneficent author ever to have sat down, scratched his head and banged out a sentence.' Stephen Fry In nine of Wodehouse's ripest stories from the 1920s, the characters are united by their worship of golf. From Rodney Spelvin, the sickeningly good-looking romantic poet who comes to his senses when he discovers the game, to Rollo Podmarsh, who finishes his round even when he thinks himself fatally poisoned, and Chester Meredith who discovers eloquence on the eighteenth green, we meet the full range of humanity in fair weather and foul. P.G. Wodehouse is recognised as the greatest English comic writer of the twentieth century. His characters and settings have entered our language and our mythology. Launched on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, the Everyman Wodehouse will eventually contain all the novels and stories, edited and reset. Each Everyman volume will be the finest edition of the master ever published.

Reviews

Nothing will ever dim the brilliance of Wodehouse's world or flatten his ever-sprightly and always entertaining prose -- John Mortimer * The Sunday Times *
What can one say about Wodehouse He exhausts superlatives. I am not alone in believing he has come closer than any writer of English to approaching Shakespeare's complete mastery and transcendency of language. * Stephen Fry *
Mr Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in * Evelyn Waugh *

Author Bio

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.