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

Faulks, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250049067 ISBN 13: 9781250049063

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2014

Synopsis

One B. Wooster, recently returned from a very pleasurable sojourn in Cannes, finds himself at the stately home of Sir Henry Hackwood in Dorset. Bertie is more than familiar with the country house set-up: he is a veteran of the cocktail hour and, thanks to Jeeves, his gentleman's personal gentleman, is never less than immaculately dressed.

On this occasion, however, it is Jeeves who is to be seen in the drawing room while Bertie finds himself below stairs―a role for which he has no discernable talent and a situation he doesn't much like. The root cause of this role reversal is love. Bertie, you see, has met one Georgiana Meadowes on the Côte d'Azur. However, Georgiana is spoken for. Orphaned at young age, she is the ward of the impoverished Sir Henry Hackwood. In order to help Sir Henry maintain his beloved Melbury Hall, Georgiana is engaged to marry a man of sufficient means, one Rupert Venables.

Meanwhile, Peregrine ‘Woody' Beeching, one of Bertie's oldest chums, is desperate to regain the trust of his fiancée Amelia, Sir Henry's tennis-mad daughter, and has approached Bertie―well, Jeeves, actually―for help.

But why would this necessitate Bertie having to pass himself off as a servant when he has never so much as made a cup of tea? Could it be that the ever loyal, Spinoza-loving Jeeves has something up his sleeve?

With the approval of the Wodehouse estate, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks brings P.G. Wodehouse's most beloved characters back to life in a hilarious affair of mix-ups and mishaps, a brilliantly conceived, seamlessly executed novel 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 Griffin
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1250049067
• ISBN 13: 9781250049063
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256