P.G. Wodehouse – Carol's Notebook

Author: P.G. Wodehouse

The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr. Mulliner, P. G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914.

As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.

At the age of ninety-three, in the New Year’s Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine’s Day some forty-five days later.

I've read several of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie books, but Something Fresh is the first of his Blandings Castle series I've picked up. It was funny and light-hearted and just a nice break. Lord Emsworth, owner of Blandings Castle, accidentally stole a valuable scarab from his son's fiancée's father, a millionaire American. Our two main characters, Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine, are headed to Blandings Castle for a house party, both trying to retrieve the scarab and receive the reward. They both are impersonating servants, so we see a lot of what is happening downstairs. Ashe and Joan have a lot in common even though they have only recently met; they are both writers, both live in the same building, both could use a new direction, something fresh. In the meantime, Lord Emsworth son may or may not be a spot of trouble over a former crush. Now that he is engaged, those letters he wrote to another woman may cost...