Folio Archives 268: Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse 2000

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse 2000

I believe that P. G. Wodehouse wrote 99 short novels in the same light-hearted comic style, many featuring the inimitable and knowledgeable man-servant Jeeves and his rather dim-witted and accident prone employer, Berty Wooster.

The sense of humour is classically very dry and British, and may be misinterpreted by those with English as a second language and even Americans who have a more slap-stick style of humour. The stories are utter nonsense and invariably involve Wooster getting into some type of ridiculous scrape while Jeeves extracts him from his troubles. I would strongly advise against reading more than two of these novels sequentially or your brain may turn to mush, but reading one every now and then after a series of more serious books will give some light relief.

The Folio Society has published many, but not all, of Wodehouse’s works thus:-
- Jeeves Set (1996)
Ring For Jeeves; Joy in the Morning; The Mating Season; The Code of the Woosters; Right Ho, Jeeves; Thank You, Jeeves
- Jeeves Set (2000)
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen; Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit; Jeeves in the Offing, Much Obliged, Jeeves; Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
- Jeeves Set (2010)
The Inimitable Jeeves; Carry On, Jeeves; Very Good, Jeeves!
-Best of The Blandings
Heavy Weather; Summer Lightning; Uncle Fred in the Springtime; Pigs Have Wings; Full Moon; Service With a Smile
- New Jeeves set (2017-19)
Carry On Jeeves; Jeeves and Wooster Stories; Thank You, Jeeves; The Clicking of Cuthbert; The Inimitable Jeeves; Very Good, Jeeves



The earlier books were published in a similar style, but the New Jeeves set is in a totally different style and still available from the FS. These earlier books appeared only as sets, but some of the current titles have been published as a single volume (eg. The Clicking of Cuthbert).



The earlier sets of books are copiously illustrated with line drawings by Paul Cox, and are bound in cloth printed with bright wrap-around colour illustrations. They come in decorated and titled cream slipcases (23.4x14.7cm.) and have plain cream endpapers. There are no introductions.

I have the Jeeves set from 2000, and as an example of one book to review in detail I have chosen the delightfully titled Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, because this ridiculous title effectively reflects the silliness of the contents. This has a total of 53 illustrations by Paul Cox, including numerous head and tail pieces. You can read the first chapter in the photos below to get an idea of the style.

























































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

Thanks as ever for the wonderfully illustrated review.
I have a couple of earlier Wodehouse books by FS, but this may not be complete.
Short Stories
Published 1983, introduced by Christopher Falkus and illustrated by George Adamson. The cover is brown spine with yellow and brown dogtooth check covers. I think Wooster must have overridden Jeeves good taste with the cover! It has 19 stories including six Jeeves and three Blandings.
Leave it to Psmith
Published 1989, introduced by Benny Green and copiously illustrated by Paul Cox. The cover is duck egg blue cloth with an illustration of Psmith. Confusingly this is both the fourth and last of the Psmith novels and second of the Blandings series. Psmith is like an early, cleverer version of Wooster (without Jeeves) and I really enjoyed.

I don’t have The Plums of Wodehouse, an anthology of stories and excerpts, illustrated by Paul Cox I think.

Are we doing commentary on the material? Because Wodehouse is absolutely lovely. It's the perfect palate cleanser and what I'd point to as a definition of 'light reading'. There's a lot of dry humor and sly wit, and you'll find yourself wanting to hold a revival for expressions like rather and what-ho! Of FS offerings the newer editions are much more somber looking, and since the illustrated versions shown here can be had for a song usually I'd choose the latter.
There's also the excellent Jeeves & Wooster TV show with Fry and Laurie if you'd rather watch an adaptation or to get you clued into the style.

I never liked the style of the illustrations on these sets, so when a local billionaire died & his library was split up i ended up buying a full set of the Everyman hardbacks instead which reserve illustrations for the dust jackets only - i think there were around 98 volumes in the set, all unread & much cheaper individually than Folios !

>4 antinous_in_london: Wish I'd done that. To me the careless slapstick of the Cox illustrations is at war with Wodehouse's wry style. 98 sounds about right if you include the early school stories -- not intentionally funny-- but I'd eschew those. The Wodehouse Prize for comic writing includes a pig, which nobody is likely to take home, and 52 of the volumes. Alexander McColl Smith worried about where he was going to squeeze those in.

>5 Jayked: Agreed- I think that cartoonish slapstick style of the illustrations is what didn't work for me (i have the same problem with the Dorothy L. Sayers editions). The Everyman series also had the advantage for me of covering every single story of Wodehouse’s all in a uniform series, whereas Folio will only ever produce editions of a few of the most popular stories. For £350 i got 98 volumes, which would probably have bought me a couple of Folio Wodehouse sets at their original prices. McCall Smith seems to produce about 50 novels a year, I'm not sure how he find the time !

>6 antinous_in_london: Three thousand words a day before breakfast - and he can reach speeds of a thousand words an hour with a following wind. The Barbara Cartland of whimsy.

>6 antinous_in_london:

Everyman's collection is 99 volumes by the way.

>8 adriano77: Nice, so they were even cheaper than I thought ! They’re sitting on the shelf but I've never bothered to count them !

>7 red_guy: Might be closer to say a minor Trollope of today. His work habits and output are similar, as is his limited social range. One of his series is serialised in the Scotsman while still unfinished, in the Victorian (or soap opera) manner. For each series he provides a largely unchanging cast in alternating episodes without an overarching plot or development. I haven't sampled all of his wares, but "whimsy" isn't always present. He has one dreadful heroine who examines every step she takes for its morality.

>10 Jayked: would the dreadful heroine be Isabel?

>10 Jayked: Oh, I'm a huge fan and have read most of them. I was thinking more of his rate of production than anything, although Trollope, whose female characters are some of the very best in the 19th century is perhaps a stretch.
A.McC.S's only real fault is that he has repetitive tags for every character rather than any actual character development - Mma Ramotswe (traditionally built) Grace Makutse (sentient shoes) Varg (grey Volvo) Isobel Dalhousie (Brer Fox). I do find that this can get to irritate unless you are in the mood for this catechism of distressed oatmeal, ankles, cake etc., but fortunately I usually am. In fact, there are times when his books are actually medicinal.
He is particularly good on dogs, I reckon - In the Corduroy Mansions series (which used to be a daily serial in the Telegraph once upon a time) the 'Pimlico terrier' Freddie de la Hay can fasten his own seatbelt, and the Inspector Varg books has Marten, the only dog in all Scandinavia who can lipread Swedish. Very hard to resist.

>11 overthemoon: 'would the dreadful heroine be Isabel?'
The same. She suffers from having too much unearned money, a condition that doesn't bother any other character. The schools they attend(ed) are high on the fee-paying list: George Watson's, Edinburgh Academy, Robert Gordon's, Morrison's. One lad is from James Gillespie's (no fees), but he's a corpse, appropriately. Smith. like Trollope, doesn't really do working class, which is why his books are so free from gloom.