Blandings Castle (book)

"Blandings Castle" is a collection of short stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the UK on 12 April 1935 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the U.S. on 20 September 1935 by Doubleday Doran, New York. All its stories had previously appeared between 1924 and 1933 in British or U.S. magazines. The full title reads "Blandings Castle and Elsewhere".

Overview

The first six stories all take place at the book's namesake Blandings Castle; they are set some time between the events of "Leave it to Psmith" (1923) and those of "Summer Lightning" (1929). The seventh concerns Bobbie Wickham, an acquaintance and sometime fiancée of Bertie Wooster, and the last five are narrated by Mr Mulliner.

Contents

* "The Custody of the Pumpkin"
** US: "Saturday Evening Post", 29 November 1924
** UK: "Strand", December 1924
* "Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best"
** UK: "Strand", June 1926
** US: "Liberty", 5 June 1926
* "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey"
** US: "Liberty", 9 July 1927
** UK: "Strand", August 1927
* "Company for Gertrude"
** UK: "Strand", September 1928
** US: "Cosmopolitan", October 1928
* "The Go-getter"
** US: "Cosmopolitan", March 1931
** UK: "Strand", August 1931
* "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend"
** US: "Liberty", 6 October 1928
** UK: "Strand ", November 1928
* "Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure"
** US: "Liberty", 23 January 1926
** UK: "Strand", February 1926
* "Monkey Business"
** UK: "Strand", December 1932
* "The Nodder"
** UK: "Strand", January 1933
* "The Juice of an Orange"
** UK: "Strand", February 1933
* "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom"
** UK: "Strand", April 1933
* "The Castaways"
** UK: "Strand", June 1933

Television

Several of the Blandings shorts from this collection were adapted for television by the BBC, broadcast in February and March 1967 in six half-hour episodes. They starred Ralph Richardson as Lord Emsworth, Derek Nimmo as Freddie Threepwood, Meriel Forbes as Lady Constance, and Stanley Holloway as Beach. Unfortunately the master tapes of all but the first part ("Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend"), were wiped, and no known copies exist.

Two of the Mr Mulliner stories featured in the collection, "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom" and "The Nodder", were produced as part of the BBC's Wodehouse Playhouse series, starring John Alderton and Pauline Collins, airing in 1975 and 1976 respectively. [ [http://www.blandings.org.uk/stage/Playhouse.htm Wodehouse Playhouse] , Blandings.]

References

; Sources consulted

* Cite web
author = Midkiff, Neil (The Wodehouse Society [US] )
date = 2001-10-30
title = "The Wodehouse short stories"
work = P. G. Wodehouse pages
url = http://home.earthlink.net/~nmidkiff/pgw/story.html
accessdate = 2006-04-24
archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20070217191256/http://home.earthlink.net/~nmidkiff/pgw/story.html
archivedate = 2007-02-17 – Alphabetical list of Wodehouse's short stories, with publication and collections.
* Cite web
author = Kuzmenko, Michel (The Russian Wodehouse Society)
date = 2005-11-11 update
title = "Blandings Castle"
work = Bibliography
url = http://wodehouse.ru/53.htm
archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20051111092716/http://wodehouse.ru/53.htm
archivedate = 2005-11-11 – Lists of characters and publication dates for each story.

; Endnotes

ee also

* List of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse

External links

* [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/p-g-wodehouse/blandings-castle-and-elsewhere.htm Fantastic Fiction's page] , with details of published editions, photos of book covers and links to used copies
*