About the Author

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as 'Plum') wrote about seventy novels and some three hundred short stories over seventy-three years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler's Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for 'having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world'. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged ninety-three, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine's Day.

Reviews

British narrator and actor Martin Jarvis brings his prodigious talents to Blandings Castle, creating a rich and delightful world with his wit, comedic timing and range of voices-each one more pitch perfect and hilarious than the last. In P.G. Wodehouse's classic novel, listeners follow Clarence, ninth earl of Emsworth, and his lunatic but lovable family into an outrageous web of absurdist drama, romance and deception, replete with chorus girls, pig-napping, scandalous memoirs, broken engagements, manuscript thieves, disapproving relatives, private detectives and mistaken identities. Jarvis not only captures the essence of the novel, but creates a listening experience so vivid and warm that his audience will be very reluctant to leave Blandings. An Overlook hardcover. (Apr.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.