Bøker i Everyman's Library P G WODEHOUSE-serien

In this series of letters to William Townend, a fellow-writer and friend since their schooldays at Dulwich College, Wodehouse discusses in some detail his literary outlook, writing methods and constant hunt for new plots.

Several Sherlock Holmes parodies read as what they are - high-spirited experiments - but the longer stories delve deeper into character: together, they recreate a vanished world of school shops, fagging, Latin prep and hearty teas.

"Deep down in his heart the genuine Englishman has a rugged distaste for seeing his country invaded by a foreign army. But this would be to reckon without patriotic Clarence, 'Boy of Destiny', who alone is prepared to stand up to the foe, and who devises a highly unorthodox plan to restore his country to freedom... The Swoop!

Delightful in themselves, they are interesting chiefly as windows on a great writer's early evolution. In The Man of Means, he looks forward to Bertie Wooster and Ukridge, but also back to his Victorian models, in a fantastic tale of the little man struggling with fate.

In order to save his reputation and the honour of his house at school after he shames himself by running away from a fight between fellow pupils and toughs from the local town, a studious schoolboy takes up the study of boxing. The simple tale is given sparkle by vivid character drawing and the author's sharp ear for schoolboy dialogue

Anthony, fifth Earl of Droitwich, is engaged to Violet, a millionaires daughter which was a result of their families planning rather than natures course. Their plan to maintain the family coffers is undermined by the arrival of his Nanny whom under the influence of too much medicinal Brandy allows certain skeletons out of the family tomb.

Three American sisters leave their chicken farm on Long Island for a holiday in Europe. When they all find themselves together at the exclusive resort of St. Rocque - one of the sisters in search of a husband, the marquis in search of a fortune, the writer in search of love - Wodehousian complications ensue.

Wendell wishes he could be rid of his embarrassing aunt Kelly, while Kelly wants to escape her financial dependence on Wendell. Henry's niece, Jane, needs to part from her glamorous but ghastly fiance, Lionel, while Bill Hardy, who falls for Jane, needs no convincing to abandon the bachelor state.

The Small Bachelor

Monty Bodkin has returned to London from Hollywood, leaving Sandy Miller, his secretary there, heartbroken, because Monty loves English hockey international Gertrude Butterwick instead of her.

Mike is a seriously good cricketer who forms an unlikely alliance with old Etonian Psmith ('the P is silent') after they both find themselves fish out of water at a new school, Sedleigh, where they eventually overcome the hostility of others and their own prejudices to become stars.

It is the general view at Eckleton school that there never was such a house of slackers as Kay's. After the Summer Concert fiasco, Mr Kay resolves to remove Fenn from office and puts his house into special measures, co-opting Kennedy, second prefect of Blackburn's, as reluctant troubleshooter with a brief to turn the place around.

This is a tactful book - there are no shocking revelations - but an extremely amusing one, with vivid portraits of such stars as Gertrude Lawrence and insights into febrile life behind the scenes.

Using multiple narrators, playing with literary stereotypes and identities, this title tells the story of an aspiring young writer, James Orlebar Cloyster, prepared to do almost anything, first for success and then for gratification.

St Austin's school (as featured in The Pothunters) is the setting for twelve delightful early Wodehouse stories.

Much married American movie mogul Ivor Llewellyn depends on his friends at Bachelors Anonymous to keep him out of romantic entanglements on his trip to London.

When Jane unexpectedly becomes a millionairess, Jerry despairs of wooing her, but the sun never goes behind a cloud for long in Wodehouse: Jerry gets his Jane in the end, but only after a series of trials which raise the comic stakes to the author's highest level.

Wodehouse's well-known gift for satisfying plots and comic surprises is evident on every page, but there are also signs of his debt to earlier writers in the realistic tradition.

This charming story of the Jackson cricketing dynasty describes the adventures of Mike Jackson at boarding school as he makes his way up the sporting ladder to the first eleven.

The Adventures of Sally is a transatlantic comedy set in worlds Wodehouse knew well: American theatres, English country houses, and the theatrical boarding-houses where young men and women dream of finding fame and fortune.

Freddie Widgeon wants the money to buy shares in a coffee plantation in Kenya so that he can marry Sally Foster. Soapy and Dolly Molloy want to get their hands on a cache of stolen jewels hidden in the house of Freddie's neighbour in the suburb of Valley Fields. When their paths cross, the ensuing misunderstandings lead to vintage Wodehouse comedy.

When O'Hara and Moriarty, two boys at Wrykyn School, tar and feather the statue of a pompous local MP, O'Hara mislays at the scene of their crime a tiny gold bat borrowed from Trevor, captain of the school cricket team.

And so it is that, in the process of telling their story, published early in his career, Wodehouse constructs the critique of Europe versus America, privilege versus enterprise, decadence versus adventure, which was to underpin many of his later tales.

Following the death of Carmen Flores, the lubricious Mexican star, Adela Cork buys her Hollywood house.

This is the tale of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, one of Wodehouse's favourite protagonists, and his fraught attempt to establish a business farming chickens on the coast of Dorset.

The action of the novel takes place at the fictional "Beckford College", a private school for boys; the title alludes to the arrival at the school of a mischievous young boy called Farnie, who turns out to be the uncle of the older "Bishop" Gethryn, a prefect, cricketer and popular figure in the school.

Blandings Castle lacks its usual balm for the Earl of Emsworth, as his stern sister Lady Constance Keeble is once more in residence. With a painting of reclining nude at the centre of numerous intrigues, Gally's genius is once again required to sort things out.

When someone breaks into the cricket pavilion and steals two silver cups, the whole school is agog. Could it possibly be an inside job? Nothing less than the honour of St Austin's is at stake, not to mention the reputation of Jim Thomson, an excellent athlete with a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Contains stories that include "The Fat of the Land", "Scratch Man", "The Right Approach", "Jeeves Makes An Omelette", "The Word In Season", "Big Business", "Leave It To Algy", "Joy Bells For Walter", "A Tithe For Charity", and "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust".

one however, "Extricating Young Gussie", is remarkable as the first appearance of some of Wodehouse's most well-known and beloved characters, Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster (although here Bertie's surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps, and Jeeves' role is very small), along with Bertie's fearsome Aunt Agatha.