The Swan Song of A.J. Wentworth

(Paperback)

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Description

The last of the humorous fictional memoirs of a hapless assistant schoolmaster.

It is to be A.J. Wentworth's final appearance on the scholastic scene. Once more he dons his cap and gown - or, to be more precise, Rawlinson's cap and gown - and returns to Burgrove for just one more time.

His final term includes a brief but broadening visit to the United States, in addition to the usual intellectual cut and thrust of the classroom. Whether he's causing a stir on Fifth Avenue, or merely 'trying to knock a bit of sense into a bunch of thick-headed boys,' A.J. Wentworth fumbles, blusters and generally carries on.

A comic study in blinkered English manners, the Wentworth Papers will delight fans of P.G. Wodehouse or Grossmiths' Mr Pooter.First introduced to readers in the pages ofPunchmagazine, it was later dramatized for both BBC Radio and ITV drama.

Reviews

Praise for the Wentworth Papers:

A splendid comic hero cannot fail to engage the sympathy of everyone who has ever sat in a classroomeither as master or pupil Few books have made me laugh out loud quite so oftenEvening Standard

I was oftenhelpless with laughter. Not a book to be read in publicThe Oldie

A truly comic inventionThe Guardian

Masterly caricatureTimes Literary Supplement

Wentworth turns out to be the hero of a work certain to be pigeon-holed as a minor classic by which people usually meana classic more readable than the major kind a man Mr Pooter would regard with awe but nevertheless recognise as a brotherSpectator

A book of such hilarious nature thatI had to give up reading it in publicNew Statesman

One of the funniest books everSunday Express

Author Bio

Humphry Francis Elliswas born in 1907 in Lincolnshire, and educated at Tonbridge and Magdalen College, Oxford. Following a year as assistant master at Marlborough school he began to write forPunchmagazine.In 1949 Ellis becamePunch's Literary and Deputy Editor, a post which he held until 1953. It was during this period that he developed the character of A. J. Wentworth, inspired by his experience as a schoolmaster.Punchcontinued to publish Ellis's work, though from 1954 he found a more lucrative market inThe New Yorker,where the Wentworth stories proved very popular.