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The Throwback is a 1978 satirical novel by Tom Sharpe.
It has been released as a recorded book in two formats: in an abridged version by HarperCollins Audio read by Simon Callow ( ISBN 0001050761) and unabridged by ISIS Audio Books read by Geoffrey Matthews ( ISBN 185695692X)
The plot is based around the ancient Flawse family, landed gentry based at the falling-down Flawse Hall, (near "Flawse Fell") in the wilds of Northumberland, just south of the Anglo-Scottish border. The single remaining family member is a cantankerous octogenarian named Edwin Tyndale Flawse. His illegitimate grandson Lockhart (aka "the Bastard") combines sexual and educational innocence with an alarming propensity for violence when he or his wife is threatened. The old man was born in the late 19th century, and his main aim in the very autumn years of his life is to find the father of his bastard grandchild and flog him to within an inch of his life.
The plot involves the pair making a double marriage while on a cruise, Edwin to the grasping middle-aged Mrs. Sandicott (who desires to marry a very rich old man with as short a lifespan remaining as possible) and Lockhart to her innocent and beautiful daughter Jessica (who knows as little of real life as he does and wants nothing more than a stereotypical male hero).
One plot strand has the older couple moving to Flawse Hall; the pair immediately begin fighting as she realises that the old man has no immediate intention of dying and that Flawse Hall is not the aristocratic seat she imagined. The house has no electricity or modern appliances, and is located miles from the nearest town of Black Pockrington and the nearest railway station of Hexham, and thanks to a clause in her new husband's will which states that although she will inherit everything after he dies, she can never leave or else she'll forfeit the entire estate. The other strand has Lockhart and Jessica moving to Sandicott Crescent in the south London suburb of Purley and fighting an innocents' battle together against the modern world. Lockhart is not at home in his new suburban environment and subsequently loses his job in his mother-in-law's accountancy firm (courtesy of and in retaliation by his mother-in-law when Edwin's will includes another clause stating that if Lockhart ever finds his natural father the entire Flawse estate and inheritance immediately reverts to him) and longs for home. Unable to get another job since he doesn't statistically exist (thanks to his grandfather's refusal to register him with a birth certificate or with the National Health Service), Lockhart embarks on a prolonged, complicated, merciless and ultimately successful campaign to evict the tenants of the houses owned by Jessica so that they can be sold.
The finale has the two strands reunited back in Northumberland and involves the inevitable discovery that the spirit of the Flawse family lives on in "the Bastard" but is spiced up by several deaths, the inclusion of a human taxidermist, extensive use of sound equipment and a vicious battle with the taxmen and "the excise men" (Her Majesty's Customs and Excise Department).
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James I by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution.
Lord Emsworth and Others is a collection of nine short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 19 March 1937 by Herbert Jenkins, London; it was not published in the United States. The Crime Wave at Blandings, which was published on 25 June 1937 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, is a very different collection, sharing only three of its seven titles with the UK book. Penguin Books published a UK edition of The Crime Wave at Blandings in 1966. The stories in both books had all previously appeared in both British and American magazines.
Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere is a British sitcom starring and written by Peter Kay and Paddy McGuinness. It was broadcast on Channel 4 and began on 12 November 2004, running for six 30-minute episodes up until 17 December 2004. A spin-off from Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, the series follows the two Bolton doormen/bouncers Maxwell "Max" Bygraves (Kay) and Patrick "Paddy" O'Shea (McGuinness) as they tour around the UK in their campervan. They are fugitives due to an incident in the last episodes of Phoenix Nights, in which a club patron threatened to have them killed by hitmen.
Thomas Percy was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A tall, physically impressive man, little is known of his early life beyond his matriculation in 1579 at the University of Cambridge, and his marriage in 1591 to Martha Wright. In 1596 his second cousin once removed, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, appointed him constable of Alnwick Castle and made him responsible for the Percy family's northern estates. He served the earl in the Low Countries in about 1600–1601, and in the years before 1603 was his intermediary in a series of confidential communications with King James VI of Scotland.
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 12 April 1935 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and, as Blandings Castle, in the United States on 20 September 1935 by Doubleday Doran, New York. All the stories had previously appeared in Strand Magazine (UK) and all except the last in various US magazines.
The Clicking of Cuthbert is a collection of ten short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, all with a golfing theme. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 3 February 1922 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd of London. It was later published in the United States by George H. Doran of New York on 28 May 1924 under the title Golf Without Tears. The short stories were originally published in magazines between 1919 and 1922.
"Jeeves Takes Charge" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in the Saturday Evening Post in the United States in November 1916, and in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in April 1923. The story was also included in the 1925 collection Carry On, Jeeves.
Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer is the second of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, published anonymously in 1815. According to an introduction that Scott wrote in 1829, he had originally intended to write a story of the supernatural, but changed his mind soon after starting. The book was a huge success, the first edition selling out on the first day of publication.
Mr. Mulliner Speaking is a collection of nine short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on April 30, 1929, by Herbert Jenkins, and in the United States on February 21, 1930, by Doubleday, Doran. The stories were originally published in magazines in the UK and the US between 1924 and 1929.
Meet Mr. Mulliner is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. First published in the United Kingdom on 27 September 1927 by Herbert Jenkins, and in the United States on 2 March 1928 by Doubleday, Doran. The short stories were originally published in magazines, mainly The Strand Magazine in the UK and Liberty in the US.
The Man Upstairs is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 23 January 1914 by Methuen & Co., London. Most of the stories had previously appeared in magazines, generally Strand Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan or Collier's Weekly in the United States. Although the book was not published in the US, many of the stories were eventually made available to US readers in The Uncollected Wodehouse (1976) and The Swoop! and Other Stories (1979).
The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by British author P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the UK on 8 March 1917 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the US on 1 February 1933 by A. L. Burt and Co., New York. All the stories had previously appeared in periodicals, usually The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom and The Red Book Magazine or The Saturday Evening Post in the United States.
A Man of Means is a collection of six short stories written in collaboration by P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill. The stories first appeared in the United Kingdom in The Strand Magazine in 1914, and in the United States in Pictorial Review in 1916. They were later published in book form in the UK by Porpoise Books in 1991. The collection was released on Project Gutenberg in 2003.
Maria Ignatievna von Budberg-Bönninghausen, also known as Countess von Benckendorff and Baroness von Budberg, was a Russian adventuress and suspected double agent of the Soviet Union secret police (OGPU) and the British Intelligence Service.
Reginald "Reggie" Pepper is a fictional character who appears in seven short stories by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Reggie is a young man-about-town who gets drawn into trouble trying to help his pals. He is considered to be an early prototype for Bertie Wooster, who, along with his valet Jeeves, is one of Wodehouse's most famous creations.
Jessica is a historical novel based on a true story by Bryce Courtenay. It was published in 1998 and like other works from Courtenay covers several years in the life of the main character: Jessica Bergman. It was adapted into a mini-series starring Leeanna Walsman and Sam Neill which aired on Australian television in 2004. Jessica was voted Best Mini Series at the 2004 Chicago International Film Festival. It twice won the APA Who Weekly Reader's Choice Award, in 1999 and 2000.
David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was a British peer, soldier, and landowner. He was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.
William, Earl of Glenallan, otherwise Lord Glenallan, is a character in Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel The Antiquary, a Scottish aristocrat whose life has been ruined by the suicide of his wife and the belief that he has unwittingly committed incest. His story forms the melodramatic Gothic strand in an otherwise largely realistic comic novel.
Butterflies in the Rain is a 1926 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Edward Sloman and starring Laura La Plante, James Kirkwood and Dorothy Cumming. The film is set in England and is based on a novel of the same name by the British writer Andrew Soutar.