The Inimitable Jeeves

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The Inimitable Jeeves
TheInimitableJeeves.png
First edition
Author P. G. Wodehouse
LanguageEnglish
Series Jeeves
Genre Comedy
Publisher Herbert Jenkins (UK)
George H. Doran (US)
Publication date
17 May 1923 (UK)
28 September 1923 (US)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback)
OCLC 3601985
Preceded by My Man Jeeves  
Followed by Carry On, Jeeves  

The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse was the first of the Jeeves novels, although not originally conceived as a single narrative, being assembled from a number of short stories featuring the same characters. The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins, London, on 17 May 1923 and in the United States by George H. Doran, New York, on 28 September 1923, under the title Jeeves. [1]

Contents

Overview

The novel combined 11 previously published stories, of which the first six and the last were split in two, to make a book of 18 chapters. It is now often printed in 11 chapters, mirroring the original stories.

All the stories had previously appeared in The Strand Magazine in the UK, between December 1921 and November 1922, except for one, "Jeeves and the Chump Cyril", which had appeared in the Strand in August 1918. That story had appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (US) in June 1918. All the other stories appeared in Cosmopolitan in the US between December 1921 and December 1922.

This was the second collection of Jeeves stories, after My Man Jeeves (1919); the next collection would be Carry On, Jeeves , in 1925.

All of the short stories are connected and most of them involve Bertie's friend Bingo Little, who is always falling in love.

Contents

The original story titles and publication dates were as follows (with split chapter titles in parentheses):

("Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum" and "No Wedding Bells for Bingo")
("Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind" and "Pearls Mean Tears")
("The Pride of the Woosters Is Wounded" and "The Hero's Reward")
("Introducing Claude and Eustace" and "Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch")
("A Letter of Introduction" and "Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant")
("Comrade Bingo" and "Bingo Has a Bad Goodwood")
(A pastiche or parody by Hugh Kingsmill, "Clubs are Trumps", follows immediately on from this story. It was published in 1931 in The English Review, and was later reprinted in The Best of Kingsmill (1970).)
("Bingo and the Little Woman" and "All's Well")

Publication history

Along with Right Ho, Jeeves and Very Good, Jeeves , the novel was included in a collection titled Life With Jeeves, published in 1981 by Penguin Books. [2] The short story omnibus collection The World of Jeeves (1967) included the original versions of the eleven stories that were modified by Wodehouse to make up The Inimitable Jeeves.

References

  1. ↑ McIlvaine, E., Sherby, L.S. and Heineman, J.H. (1990) P. G. Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist. New York: James H. Heineman, pp. 41-42. ISBN   087008125X
  2. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 126, B24a.
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