Summer Lightning

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Summer Lightning
FishPreferred.jpg
First US edition cover
Author P. G. Wodehouse
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Comic novel
Publisher Doubleday, Doran (US)
Herbert Jenkins (UK)
Publication date
1 July 1929 (US)
19 July 1929 (UK)
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Preceded by Leave it to Psmith (novel), Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (shorts) 
Followed by Heavy Weather  

Summer Lightning is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 1 July 1929 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, under the title Fish Preferred, and in the United Kingdom on 19 July 1929 by Herbert Jenkins, London. [1] It was serialised in The Pall Mall Magazine (UK) between March and August 1929 and in Collier's (US) from 6 April to 22 June 1929.

Contents

It forms part of the Blandings Castle saga, being the third full-length novel to be set there, after Something Fresh (1915) and Leave It to Psmith (1923). Heavy Weather (1933) forms a semi-sequel to the story, with many of the same characters involved.

Plot introduction

Gally is down at Blandings and writing his memoirs, to the horror of all who knew him in their wild youths, particularly Lord Emsworth's neighbour and pig-fancying rival Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe. While sinister forces, including the efficient Baxter and the unpleasant Percy Pilbeam, scheme to put a stop to the book, Ronnie Fish and his old pal Hugo Carmody are entangled in difficult relationships, which require much subterfuge, some pig-theft and a little imposter-ing to resolve.

Plot summary

Hugo Carmody, who became secretary to Lord Emsworth following the failure of The Hot Spot, the night club he ran with Ronnie Fish, is conducting a secret affair with Millicent Threepwood, Emsworth's niece. They hide this from Lady Constance, who is distracted with worries that the book of memoirs her brother Galahad is writing will bring shame to the family.

Ronnie, meanwhile, is secretly engaged to Sue Brown, a chorus girl and an old friend of Hugo. When they run into Lady Constance in London one day, Ronnie introduces Sue as Myra Schoonmaker, an American heiress he and his mother Lady Julia recently met in Biarritz.

Ronnie travels to Blandings, where Baxter has just returned, called in by Lady Constance to steal the memoirs. Hoping to get money out of Lord Emsworth, his trustee, Ronnie claims to love pigs, but his uncle has seen him bouncing a tennis ball on the Empress' back, and is enraged. Ronnie, inspired, steals the pig, planning to return it and earn his uncle's gratitude, roping in Beach to help; they hide her in a cottage in the woods.

Hugo is sent to London to fetch a detective; the job is refused by Percy Pilbeam. Hugo takes Sue out dancing, but when Ronnie arrives at the club he sees Pilbeam, who admires Sue, sat at her table. Ronnie gets angry at Pilbeam, makes a scene, spends a night in jail, and in the morning snubs Sue, who he believes has betrayed him. Millicent, feeling the same about Hugo, breaks off their engagement also. Meanwhile, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, worrying about the memoirs, hires Pilbeam to retrieve them; Pilbeam agrees, realising he can use the pig-finding job to get into the castle.

Sue heads to Blandings, posing as Myra Schoonmaker. Just after her arrival, Mortimer Mason, Sue's employer, visits Galahad in the library to discuss the memoirs. He recognizes Sue in the garden and talks about her, so Galahad learns her true identity, sharing the knowledge only with Sue. Percy Pilbeam arrives, recognises Sue, and tries to get her help in his memoir-stealing scheme. Baxter, meanwhile, has grown suspicious that the pig was stolen by Carmody as a means of insuring his job; he spots Beach heading off to feed the pig, and follows him, just as the storm breaks.

Beach reaches the cottage to find Hugo and Millicent, gone there to shelter from the rain. Their relationship is healed, Hugo having explained about Sue and Ronnie, and Beach, protecting Ronnie, claims he stole the pig for Hugo to return and win Lord Emsworth's favour. Beach leaves, as Carmody takes the pig to a new hiding spot.

Baxter accuses Beach in front of Emsworth, and the three of them head to the cottage, Emsworth growing ever warier of Baxter's sanity. They find no pig, Carmody having moved it to Baxter's caravan, where Pilbeam, also caught in the rain, saw him stow it. While Emsworth, Lady Constance, Gally and Millicent go to dinner with Parsloe-Parsloe (lured away to leave the memoirs unguarded), Ronnie Fish confronts Pilbeam, and learns that Sue was indeed out in London with Carmody, and that she has come to Blandings to be near Ronnie.

Pilbeam gets tipsy, and tells Beach about Sue, and then tells Carmody that he saw him hide the pig. Carmody, in a panic, calls Millicent at Matchingham Hall; she advises him to tell Emsworth where the pig is at once. He does so, Emsworth is overjoyed, and agrees to their marriage, much to Lady Constance's disgust.

Meanwhile, Baxter intercepts a telegram meant for Lady Constance from Myra Schoonmaker in Paris, and goes to the imposter Sue's room to retrieve a note he sent her, criticising Lord Emsworth. Trapped by Beach bringing her dinner, he hides under the bed while she and Ronnie are reunited. Ronnie spots Pilbeam climbing into the room to steal Galahad's memoirs, and chases him downstairs; the returning dinner party assume they are fleeing Baxter, now confirmed as mad by the presence of the stolen pig in his caravan, and Emsworth charges into Sue's room with a shotgun. Baxter crawls out from under the bed, flustered and enraged by his experience and Emsworth's harsh words, reveals Sue's deception and storms off.

Galahad, learning that Sue Brown is Dolly Henderson's daughter, reveals that he loved her mother but was forbidden to marry her, and views Sue as a kind of honorary daughter. He tells Lady Constance that he will suppress his book if she agrees to sanction Sue and Ronnie's marriage, and to persuade her sister Julia to do likewise. Pilbeam, hearing this as he once again climbs the drainpipe, gives up his mission, leaving Galahad to tell Sue the old story of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and the prawns.

Characters

Publication history

The story was serialised under the title Summer Lightning in twelve parts in Collier's, with illustrations by John H. Crosman. [2] In Pall Mall Magazine, Summer Lightning was published in six parts and illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson. [3] The story was printed with the same title, Summer Lightning, in the Sydney Evening News in 1929. [4]

The UK edition has a preface by Wodehouse. [1] The UK edition also has a dedication: "To Denis Mackail, author of 'Greenery Street', 'The Flower Show' and other books which I wish I had written". [5] Denis Mackail was an English writer.

The story was included in the 1979 collection Life at Blandings, published by Penguin Books. The collection also includes Something Fresh and Heavy Weather. [6]

Adaptations

The novel has twice been adapted as a film, with the 1933 version Summer Lightning directed by Maclean Rogers. [7] A 1938 Swedish adaptation, under the title Thunder and Lightning , was directed by Anders Henrikson and starred Olof Winnerstrand and his wife Frida Winnerstrand. [8]

In 1987, the book was adapted as a radio drama in the Blandings radio series. [9]

A stage play, adapted by Giles Havergal, was first performed at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre in 1992; [10] a 1998 revival starred Helen Baxendale as Sue Brown. [11] The play was performed at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake in 2009. [12]

The novel was dramatised by Archie Scottney for BBC Radio 4 in 2010, with Charles Dance as Galahad Threepwood, Patricia Hodge as Lady Constance, Martin Jarvis as Lord Emsworth, and Ian Ogilvy as the narrator. [13]

Continuity with other novels

Percy Pilbeam first appeared in Bill the Conqueror (1924). Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish had previously been introduced to readers in Money for Nothing (1928), while the Empress appeared in the shorts "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey" and "Company for Gertrude", the latter also featuring the devious Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe.

Most of the cast would remain at Blandings for the excitements of Heavy Weather (1933).

Related Research Articles

Blandings Castle is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being the seat of Lord Emsworth, home to many of his family and the setting for numerous tales and adventures. The stories were written between 1915 and 1975.

Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl Emsworth, commonly known as Lord Emsworth, is a recurring fictional character in the Blandings Castle series of stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. He is the amiable and somewhat absent-minded head of the large Threepwood family. Longing for nothing more than to talk to his prize pig, Empress of Blandings, or potter peacefully in the idyllic gardens of Blandings Castle, he must frequently face the unpleasant reality of his domineering sisters and familial duties.

Montague "Monty" Bodkin is a recurring fictional character in three novels of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a wealthy young member of the Drones Club, well-dressed, well-spoken, impeccably polite, and generally in some kind of romantic trouble.

Sebastian Beach is a fictional character in the Blandings stories by P. G. Wodehouse. He is the butler at Blandings Castle, seat of Lord Emsworth and his family, where he serves for over eighteen years.

Rupert J. Baxter is a fictional character in the Blandings stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Often called the Efficient Baxter, he is Lord Emsworth's secretary, and an expert on many things, including Egyptian scarabs. He invariably wears his rimless spectacles, suspects everyone of being an impostor, and is, as his epithet suggests, extremely efficient.

The Honourable Galahad "Gally" Threepwood is a fictional character in the Blandings Castle stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Lord Emsworth's younger brother, a lifelong bachelor, Gally was, according to Beach, the Blandings butler, "somewhat wild as a young man". When he appears in the Blandings books, he is in his fifties, has thick grey hair and wears a black-rimmed monocle on a black ribbon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empress of Blandings</span> Fictional pig in P. G. Wodehouse stories

Empress of Blandings is a fictional pig, featured in many of the Blandings Castle novels and stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Owned by the doting Lord Emsworth, the Empress is an enormous black Berkshire sow, who wins many prizes in the "Fat Pigs" class at the local Shropshire Agricultural Show, and is the subject of many plots and schemes, generally involving her kidnap for various purposes. In 2005 Hall & Woodhouse, the Dorset-based Brewers of Badger beer, named a public house in Hampshire in honour of the Empress.

Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, 7th Baronet is a fictional character from the Blandings Castle short stories and novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. In the stories, Parsloe resides at Matchingham Hall, near Blandings Castle, and is the rival and enemy of Lord Emsworth.

<i>Heavy Weather</i> (Wodehouse novel) 1933 novel by P. G. Wodehouse

Heavy Weather is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 28 July 1933 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, and in the United Kingdom on 10 August 1933 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It had been serialised in The Saturday Evening Post from 27 May to 15 July 1933.

<i>Uncle Fred in the Springtime</i> 1939 novel by P. G. Wodehouse

Uncle Fred in the Springtime is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 18 August 1939 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, and in the United Kingdom on 25 August 1939 by Herbert Jenkins, London.

<i>Full Moon</i> (novel) 1947 novel by P. G. Wodehouse

Full Moon is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States by Doubleday & Company on 22 May 1947, and in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins on 17 October 1947. It is the sixth full-length novel to be set at the beautiful but trouble-ridden Blandings Castle, home of Lord Emsworth.

<i>Pigs Have Wings</i> 1952 novel by P. G. Wodehouse

Pigs Have Wings is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared as a serial in Collier's Weekly between 16 August and 20 September 1952. It was first published as a book in the United States on 16 October 1952 by Doubleday & Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom on 31 October 1952 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It is the seventh novel set at Blandings Castle.

<i>Service with a Smile</i> 1961 novel by P. G. Wodehouse

Service with a Smile is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 15 October 1961 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on 17 August 1962 by Herbert Jenkins, London. A condensed version of the story had previously been published in two parts in the Toronto Star Weekly, on 26 August and 2 September 1961.

Percy Frobisher Pilbeam is a fictional character in the works of P. G. Wodehouse. A journalist turned detective, he is a rather weak and unpleasant man, generally disliked by all. He appears in several novels but is perhaps best known for his involvement with the denizens of Blandings Castle, in Summer Lightning (1929) and Heavy Weather (1933).

"Company for Gertrude" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United Kingdom in September 1928 in Strand, and in the United States in October 1928 in Cosmopolitan. Part of the Blandings Castle canon, it features the absent-minded peer Lord Emsworth, and was included in the collection Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935), though the story takes place sometime between the events of Leave it to Psmith (1923) and Summer Lightning (1929).

Lady Constance Keeble is a recurring fictional character in the Blandings Castle stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being Lord Emsworth's most formidable sister, a strikingly handsome woman, with a fair, broad brow, and perfectly even white teeth. She has the carriage of an empress, and her large grey eyes are misleadingly genial.

<i>Heavy Weather</i> (film) 1995 film

Heavy Weather is a television film with a screenplay by Douglas Livingstone based on the 1933 novel Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse, set at Blandings Castle. It was made by the BBC and WGBH Boston, first screened by the BBC on Christmas Eve 1995 and shown in the United States on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre on 18 February 1996.

<i>Summer Lightning</i> (film) 1933 film

Summer Lightning is a 1933 British comedy film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring Ralph Lynn, Winifred Shotter, Chili Bouchier and Horace Hodges. It is based on the 1929 novel Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse.

<i>Blandings</i> (radio series)

The Blandings radio series is a series of radio dramas based on the Blandings Castle stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. The stories were dramatised by Wodehouse biographer Richard Usborne. The series ran between 1985 and 1992 on BBC Radio 4.

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 McIlvaine (1990), pp. 56–57, A41.
  2. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 146, D15.41–42.
  3. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 174, D115.6–11.
  4. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 190, D149.1.
  5. ↑ Mordue, Terry (26 August 2019). "Wodehouse's Books: A Detailed Bibliography, with Notes". Madame Eulalie. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  6. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 125, B21.
  7. ↑ Taves (2006), p. 161.
  8. ↑ Taves (2006), p. 168.
  9. ↑ "Blandings (Summer Lightning Part 1)". BBC Genome. BBC. 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  10. ↑ "Works of Giles Havergal at Doollee.com".
  11. ↑ "Helen Baxendale biography at filmreference.com".
  12. ↑ "Review of the 2009 revival in The Stage".
  13. ↑ "Classic Serial, PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning". BBC Radio 4. 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
Sources
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