Question about editions?

I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm new to reading Mr. Wodehouse. The only book I have is the Everyman's edition of The Best of Wodehouse. It's a very nice introduction with lots of variety. And it did its job -- it made me want to buy and read more.

So, my question: This is about the uniform hardcover editions with the cartoon-like illustrated covers that I think were originally published by the Overlook Press over the last 20 years. I see what looks like these same books listed also on Everyman's site. Are they the same? Which is the actual publisher? If they are different, which do you prefer and why??

Thanks in advance from a newly-enthralled rookie.

I have only known these editions as Everyman books, but then I am in the UK. It sounds as if the Overlook Press has collaborated with Everyman to produce the uniform edition so I would expect them to be the same. The Everyman jacket illustrations are by Andrzej Klimowski. A copy of Galahad at Blandings advertised here - https://www.borgantiquarian.com/pages/books/5888/p-g-wodehouse/galahad-at-blandi... - looks identical to my Everyman copy and is described as a first reprint of the English Everyman edition.

The Everyman books are very nicely put together. Well bound with better paper and typeface than the original Herbert Jenkins editions. The cover art is less to my taste - somehow it doesn't look 'English' enough! The characters look middle European to me - often rather sinister like somebody out of an Eric Ambler novel. Despite that I think anyone would be happy with this uniform edition. The bookseller above wanted $30 for his book so a full set might be a considerable investment. I think if someone were giving me a present of Wodehouse's complete works I might be content with the Penguin edition from around 1980 with covers by Ionicus. Cheaper and less shelf space needed

jhicks62- How I envy you; how wonderful to be at the beginning of exploring this great writer's work. I have been reading Wodehouse since I was a teenager and while re-reads are still fun nothing beats that first discovery of a great comic genius. Enjoy the journey!

>3 Maura49: Thanks! I am looking forward to the journey. I started out reading the Jeeves and Wooster stories, and thought "These are great, I'll have to get all of these!". Then I read "Crime Wave at Blandings", loved it and thought "Now I have to read all the Blandings stories and books!".

I'm sure I have a few more discoveries to make!

>2 abbottthomas: Thank you for the information. I just knew someone would know in here. And the fact that they are aesthetically pleasing as books is exciting, too! I love buying nice editions of books to read. I enjoy Folio, Everyman's, and Library of America books. I even have some older Franklin Library books.

>2 abbottthomas: I'd agree on both the production quality and the Klimowski cover art (I also have several of the Everyman series). If you like nice editions, the Everyman/Overlook is the only real option: Wodehouse's books were originally brought out as cheap mass-market fiction. A partial (UK) alternative are the "Autograph Edition" Herbert Jenkins brought out in the fifties and sixties, mostly aimed at the public library market, but they're robust rather than luxurious. There were a few Folio Society Wodehouse issues, I don't remember which books they did.

>5 jhicks62: If you're buying Wodehouse online, be careful about books published under different (US and UK) titles, or short-story collections with overlapping contents. It's all too easy to end up with duplicates! Check out a bibliography (e.g. the one compiled by the late Terry Mordue: http://madameulalie.org/tmordue/pgwbooks.html ).

There are several old threads in this group about "getting started with Wodehouse" if you find a list of 100 books too daunting...

>6 thorold: As to Folio editions, I have a six book set (in a single slipcase) from 1997 comprising Joy in the Morning, The Mating Season, The Code of the Woosters, Thank You, Jeeves, Ring for Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves: also a three book set from 2010 - The Inimitable Jeeves, Carry on, Jeeves and Very Good, Jeeves. They have much more satisfactory art work from Paul Cox, although I don't think he gets the upper classes quite right, better with bookies.

I have been a very on and off member of the Folio Society so they may well have produced others.

>1 jhicks62: The Collector’s Wodehouse was published in the U. S by the Overlook Press “in conjunction with Everyman” in 99 volumes between 2000-2014. (I don’t think Everyman has managed to publish all 99 yet – and I’m not sure they intend to). Overlook was launched in the U.S. in the early 1970’s by the former CEO of Penguin/London. It was bought out by Abrams in 2018, and the Collector’s Wodehouse volumes are now only available on the used market. In 2015 the complete collection on Overlook was available new on Amazon for $1378, from a list price of $1975.

Wish I’d bought them all then – they’re getting harder and harder to find. I have 74, all but four under the Overlook imprint- I suppose I’ll have to try to complete my collection with Everymans ordered from Canada (around $15-$20 each). As far as I can tell the Overlook and Everyman volumes are identical. I prefer them to all other editions (including Folio) for the uniform Klimowski cover art, but mostly for their size – at 5x7 in. they’re the perfect travel companion (if we ever start traveling again).

Overlook’s publicist thought “Uncle Fred in the Springtime” was Wodehouse’s best work. So far I think I most enjoyed the Psmith series. If you want to sample his work and don’t need physical volumes to have and to hold, you can read a great many of his works that were published prior to 1923 and now in the public domain in “The Collected Works of P.G. Wodehouse” in the Kindle edition on Amazon for 99 cents - or listen to them for free on LibriVox.

And finally, here’s a tip for a new fan: I was once sneered at by a bookseller for pronouncing the master’s name to rhyme with “road-house” – apparently, as he would have me believe, the English pronounce it “Wood-house”.

>8 BangkokYankee: Thank you for the history lesson. That is exactly what I wanted to know!

Also, luckily, I had read somewhere about the pronunciation, or else I know I would have made the same mistake. Thank you for the warning!

>6 thorold: Thanks for the information about the different names in the UK and US versions! I'd often seen that in Agatha Christie books, as well. And thanks for the link to the bibliography!

>9 jhicks62: My pleasure! Nothing cuts quite like the sneer of a bookseller. As a result of my little faux pas I haven’t been able to enter a bookstore – or library, for that matter– for years, and have had to do all my book-buying online. I think I’m finally over it, though. Knock on wode...

We Brits seem to collect names that are pronounced very differently from their spellings. My favourite is Cholmondeley pronounced 'Chumly' and there are scores of other examples. Personally I think it is a class thing designed to keep we plebs in our place.

>11 Maura49: As an American, I'd NEVER have guessed at that pronunciation!

As long as we're discussing pronunciations, and we have a genuine Brit at hand -- how should the first syllable of "Ukridge" be pronounced? I've been rhyming it with "yuck" in my mind, but maybe it should rhyme with "juke"??

>12 jhicks62: It's a made-up name, so Wodehouse is the only real authority, and he doesn't seem to have given us much to go on.

According to David Jasen: "pronounced Yewkridge"
According to Barry Phelps: "Stanley (pronounced Stanley) Featherstonehaugh (pronounced Fanshaw) Ukridge (pronounced Yuke-ridge)"
According to Tony Garrison: "rhymes with Duke-ridge; middle name pronounced as spelled, acc. to Debrett's Good Form"
- none cites a source beyond that

Norman Murphy suggests that the name might have come from combining the last syllable of Herbert Westbrook's name with "Uridge", the name of four brothers who were at Dulwich with Wodehouse. That would suggest something more like yuck-ridge or even uck-ridge.

>13 Foxhunter: >14 thorold: On balance, Usborne is probably the best bet: he's the only one likely to have asked Wodehouse the question himself.

>13 Foxhunter: I'm mostly with you on Penguin / Ionicus but 'perfect'? Not quite. My mind's eye picture of Jeeves and Wooster probable coincides best with Denis Price and Ian Carmichael.

I have always used the Usborne pronunciation but none of this really matters a toss. I always feel that we Brits get obsessed with this kind of thing and it's just another form of snobbery.

Somewhat similar was the U and Non U pronunciation thought up by Nancy Mitford that literary sprig of aristocracy and who knows how many complexes that caused in socially nervous people.

>18 Foxhunter: Murphy also talks about that in In search of Blandings (1981). He interviewed Perceval Graves and quotes a letter to him (Sept 1960) in which Wodehouse says "I can't imagine what Robert was thinking of when he said that I had drawn Ukridge from you!" and goes on to explain that Ukridge was largely drawn from his friend Herbert Westbrook and someone Bill Townend knew, "a man named Craxton," whom Murphy couldn't track down.

>20 Foxhunter: So maybe you and your colleague set the whole thing in motion. Totally unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but still fun!

It sounds almost as though Perceval complained to Wodehouse first to get some evidence, before daring to tackle his brother.

Currently reading and loving Thank You, Jeeves! (It's the first one that arrived from Amazon.)

Now I'm reading the FS edition of The Inimitable Jeeves. I'm enjoying it, of course -- but was little confused at first. I was under the impression that it was a short story collection, but going from chapter to chapter, the stories were linked. As I understand it now, this was done after the fact when republishing some of his magazine stories into book form.

My question: Was this done a lot with the "short story collections"?

>24 jhicks62: Not much — there were one or two other collections that got turned into "novels after the fact", like The indiscretions of Archie, but most of the time they were just published as stories.

I can't speak for certain in this particular instance, but there have been numerous instances where novels were first published in serialized form. Dickens in the 19th century and Maupin in the 20th immediately come to mind. Good way of monetizing twice!

George Lorimer, the editor at the Saturday Evening Post, published 37 P. G. Wodehouse short stories and 16 of his serialized novels over a 20+ year period. For instance, the first Blandings novel, Something Fresh was serialized in the Post in 1915. Jeeves Takes Charge was published by the Post on November 18, 1916.

In my comment comparing the Overlook and Everyman editions of “The Complete Wodehouse” (#8 above) I speculated that Everyman may not yet have published the entire 99-volume Wodehouse opus. I was mistaken. A blurb on the front flap of my most recent Everyman acquisition proclaims that the series is now complete, and I see that their online catalog finally lists them all. Fear of falling out of print (why is this common phobia not listed in the DSM-5?) has spurred me to the hunt for the 20 volumes still missing from my shelf. While the Everyman’s are generally not available in these parts and shipping costs from the U.K. remain prohibitive, North Americans need not despair. I was able to acquire all but three for a very reasonable $15 each -new, including shipping to the U.S. - from a huge Canadian retailer who lists on eBay and ships each volume separately. For the last three weeks they’ve been trickling on to the doorstep, to my daily delight and my family's alarm, as in the halls the cry goes round “He’s mad again!”

>27 BangkokYankee: Care to share the name of that Canadian dealer? I've been trying to acquire the ones I can from Amazon, but some of them have silly prices for books that just came out in the last 20 years: e.g.: $908.00??? Did they only print 3 of them?

>28 jhicks62: I don't understand the outrageous prices being asked. Grandeagleretail, located in Canada, seems to have around 40-50 Everyman Wodehouse titles among its present buy-it-now listings on eBay. They range from $14 to $22, including shipping. Sometimes the same book is listed in different auctions at 2 or 3 different prices covering that whole range, so make sure you’re getting the best price. If they don’t have the volume you’re looking for, be patient and check back later. I bought 20 in the last two months - and need just three more to complete my collection. Deliveries have come from warehouses in California and Ohio on time and with no problem. Wish I could say that about the rest of my book orders from other sources - several have been lost or delayed for weeks or months in the USPS system. Hope you find the ones you're looking for!

>29 BangkokYankee: Thank you!! I'm in Ohio, so maybe that will speed up some of the deliveries!