Uncle Fred Springtime by Wodehouse, Signed (2 results)

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his biographer and bibliographer Jasen on the front free endpaper, "To David from Plum, P. G. Wodehouse, 27 May 1964". Only Wodehouse's close friends and family knew him as "Plum". David A. Jasen (1937-2022) was the dedicatee of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963). A ragtime scholar and performer, he shared a passion for music with Wodehouse, a famed musical lyricist. The novel was first printed in the Saturday Evening Post from 22 April to 27 May 1939, and preceded the British edition by a week. A contemporary review declared that "What Zeus is to the Olympians, so is Uncle Fred. to the members of the Wodehouse mythology" (Truth, p. 271). The titular character first appeared in "Uncle Fred Flits By" (Young Men in Spats, 1936). Jasen 60; McIlvaine A61a. Truth, 1 September 1939. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine blocked and decorated in brown, top edge green, others untrimmed. With dust jacket. Bookseller's ticket (with slight wear) to rear pastedown. Spine ends bumped, minor rubbing and wear to edges; jacket somewhat creased and chipped, front flap detached, a couple of tape reinforcements on verso, faint splash mark to foot of rear panel, front flap clipped, price present on rear flap: a very good copy in poor jacket.

Chalk drawing on tinted paper. 590 x 460 mm within mount. Signed within the image.  The original artwork for the dust jacket of the first American edition of Wodehouse's Uncle Fred in the Springtime, published by Doubleday Doran in 1939. The principal plot device is the kidnapping of The Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's prize pig, and the drawing shows Uncle Fred peering through the curtains of Lord Dunstable's suite at Blandings, where she is temporarily being closeted.  The rather wonderful Peggy Bacon (1895 - 1987), illustrator for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and of her own books, was in later life resident in Kennebunk, Maine, and this picture was bought from her by the great Wodehousian Charles Gould. Present too, is Bacon's TLS ("Peggy Bacon") to Gould (also of Kennebunkport), written at the time of purchase (1981): "Many thanks for your check of $1,200 for "The Pig in the Parlour", the pastel I did for the dust jacket of P. G. Wodehouse's "Uncle Fred in the Springtime." She promises to let Gould know if any of the preparatory sketches for it turn up ("although I doubt they still exist"), and concludes with her pleasure "that an appreciator of Wodehouse's delightful work owns the pastel, and particularly someone who lives so near the Cape Porpoise house I have lived for the past twenty years.".