Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse - Hardcover

Faulks, Sebastian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250047595 ISBN 13: 9781250047595

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2013

Synopsis

Bertie Wooster (a young man about town) and his butler Jeeves (the very model of the modern manservant)―return in their first new novel in nearly forty years: Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks.

P.G. Wodehouse documented the lives of the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster for nearly sixty years, from their first appearance in 1915 ("Extricating Young Gussie") to his final completed novel (Aunts Aren't Gentlemen) in 1974. These two were the finest creations of a novelist widely proclaimed to be the finest comic English writer by critics and fans alike.

Now, forty years later, Bertie and Jeeves return in a hilarious affair of mix-ups and mishaps. With the approval of the Wodehouse estate, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks brings these two back to life for their legion of fans. Bertie, nursing a bit of heartbreak over the recent engagement of one Georgina Meadowes to someone not named Wooster, agrees to "help" his old friend Peregrine "Woody" Beeching, whose own romance is foundering. That this means an outing to Dorset, away from an impending visit from Aunt Agatha, is merely an extra benefit. Almost immediately, things go awry and the simple plan quickly becomes complicated. Jeeves ends up impersonating one Lord Etringham, while Bertie pretends to be Jeeves' manservant "Wilberforce,"―and this all happens under the same roof as the now affianced Ms. Meadowes. From there the plot becomes even more hilarious and convoluted, in a brilliantly conceived, seamlessly written comic work worthy of the master himself.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013

About this title

About the Author:

SEBASTIAN FAULKS is the author of twelve novels, including A Week in December; A Possible Life; Human Traces; On Green Dolphin Street; Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett; and the classic Birdsong, which has sold more than three million copies and was recently adapted for television. In 2008, he was invited to write a James Bond novel, Devil May Care, to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming. He lives in London with his wife and their three children.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* What, ho?! This blighter Faulks, after making a reasonably good show of posing as Ian Fleming (Devil May Care, 2009), has the unmitigated gall to take a run at impersonating the inimitable P. G., the very incarnation of sui generis? Doesn’t he know that Wodehouseans far and wide, well born and less so, will be sharpening their incisors for the chance to take a chomp at the hindquarters of the cheeky upstart? But wait. Hold off, old sports. Young Faulksie just may have the gray matter to make a go of it. The first order of business when attempting to offer homage to Sir Pelham Grenville is to construct a plot as screwball crazy as anything Shakespeare ever concocted in the Forest of Arden (disguises, mistaken identities, catastrophic kerfuffles all de rigueur); next is to plop bumbling aristocrat Bertie Wooster in the middle of the muddle; and, finally, of course, it’s necessary to set Bertie’s unflappable manservant, the all-knowing Jeeves, to the herculean task of making it all work. Faulksie’s plot is spot on: Bertie’s pal, Peregrine Woody Beeching, has been dumped by his beloved, but Bertie is on the case. The plan, for reasons only a savvy Hegelian could fathom, involves Bertie posing as a manservant and Jeeves as his master. Brilliant stroke, that, allowing Jeeves to show his stuff at dinner-table chitchat and Bertie to, well, spill the gravy. Naturally, it all takes place at a country house (Wodehouse’s Forest of Arden), and, equally naturally, Miss Georgiana Meadowes, who makes Bertie’s heart go pitty-pat, is also in attendance. OK, fine, this P. G. poseur gets the plot right, but what about the all-important patter, the Bertie-isms and the priceless Bertie-Jeeves dialogue duets? But Faulksie nails it again, evoking rather than imitating, but doing so in perfect pitch. Finally, old-timers will doubtless recoil in horror at the shocking conclusion, but let’s all loosen our stuffed shirts and let the new guy have his way. Top drawer. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Expect major media attention for the return of Bertie and Jeeves. --Bill Ott

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1250047595
• ISBN 13: 9781250047595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256