My Man Jeeves

Containing drafts of stories later rewritten for other collections (including Carry On, Jeeves), My Man Jeeves offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of comic literature’s most celebrated double-act. All the stories are set in New York, four of them featuring Jeeves and Wooster themselves; the rest concerning Reggie Pepper, an earlier version of Bertie. Plots involve the usual cast of amiable young clots, choleric millionaires, chorus-girls, and vulpine aunts, but towering over them all is the inscrutable figure of Jeeves, manipulating the action from behind the scenes.

Early or not, these stories are masterly examples of Wodehouse’s art, turning the most ordinary incidents into golden farce.