My Man Jeeves

Containing drafts of stories later rewritten for other collections (including Carry On, Jeeves), My Man Jeeves offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of comic literature’s most celebrated characters. All the stories are set in New York, four of them featuring Jeeves and Wooster as we know them; the rest concerning Reggie Pepper, an earlier version of Bertie. Plots involve the usual cast of amiable young clots, choleric millionaires, chorus-girls and vulpine aunts, but towering over the book is the inscrutable figure of Jeeves, manipulating the action from behind the scenes whenever he appears. Early or not, these stories are masterly examples of Wodehouse’s art, turning the most ordinary incidents into golden farce.