Death at the Excelsior
P.G. Wodehouse
Project Gutenberg E-Book #8176. Released 2005.
This is a selection of seven early Wodehouse short stories assembled for Project Gutenberg. The stories and their publications years are: Death at the Excelsior [1914]; Misunderstood [1910]; The best sauce [1911]; Jeeves and the chump Cyril [1918]; Jeeves in the springtime [1921]; Concealed art [1915]; The test case [1915]. The stories are unremarkable. The two Jeeves stories have been included in other collections and I have read them before, but not the others. Of these the first, Death at the Excelsior, is apparently PGW's attempt at writing a detective story - it fails. Variations of the others occur in other collections of his early stories such as 'The man with two left feet'. The stories are interesting because they show the development of his distinct style over 10 years - from vapid and dull stories from 1910 to 1915 to the two marvellous Jeeves stories (not the best though) in 1918 and 1921. But even the early stories have a general turn of phrase that is nice to read and the occasional 'nifty'. The last two stories ('Concealed art' and 'The test case') are about Reggie Pepper, a kind of early Wooster, indeed a weak imitation of him, and without Jeeves.
P.G. Wodehouse
Project Gutenberg E-Book #8176. Released 2005.
This is a selection of seven early Wodehouse short stories assembled for Project Gutenberg. The stories and their publications years are: Death at the Excelsior [1914]; Misunderstood [1910]; The best sauce [1911]; Jeeves and the chump Cyril [1918]; Jeeves in the springtime [1921]; Concealed art [1915]; The test case [1915]. The stories are unremarkable. The two Jeeves stories have been included in other collections and I have read them before, but not the others. Of these the first, Death at the Excelsior, is apparently PGW's attempt at writing a detective story - it fails. Variations of the others occur in other collections of his early stories such as 'The man with two left feet'. The stories are interesting because they show the development of his distinct style over 10 years - from vapid and dull stories from 1910 to 1915 to the two marvellous Jeeves stories (not the best though) in 1918 and 1921. But even the early stories have a general turn of phrase that is nice to read and the occasional 'nifty'. The last two stories ('Concealed art' and 'The test case') are about Reggie Pepper, a kind of early Wooster, indeed a weak imitation of him, and without Jeeves.
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