The Heart of a Goof

1st edition (UK)

The Heart of a Goof is a collection of nine short stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on April 15, 1926 by Herbert Jenkins, and in the United States on March 4, 1927 by George H. Doran, New York, under the title Divots.

The stories all concern golf, and are told by the Oldest Member; the book can be considered a sequel to The Clicking of Cuthbert (1922).

The dedication, "To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time", is a recycling of the dedication to A Gentleman of Leisure (1910), which read "To Herbert Westbrook, without whose never-failing advice, help, and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time".

Contents

The original story titles and publication dates were as follows:

• "The Heart of a Goof"
  • UK: Strand, April 1924
  • US: Red Book, September 1923
• "High Stakes"
  • UK: Strand, October 1925
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, 19 September 1925
• "Keeping In with Vosper"
  • UK: Strand, March 1926
  • US: Liberty, 13 March 1926
• "Chester Forgets Himself"
  • UK: Strand, May 1924
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, 7 July 1923
• "The Magic Plus Fours"
  • UK: Strand, December 1922
  • US: Red Book, January 1923 (as "Plus Fours")
• "The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh"
  • UK: Strand, January 1923
  • US: Red Book, March 1923 (as "Rollo Podmarsh Comes To")
• "Rodney Fails to Qualify"
  • UK: Strand, March 1924
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, 23 February 1924
• "Jane Gets off the Fairway"
  • UK: Strand, November 1924
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, 25 October 1924
• "The Purification of Rodney Spelvin"
  • UK: Strand, September 1925
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, 22 August 1925

See also

• List of Wodehouse's golf stories

External links

• The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with a list of the characters in each story