Tales of Wrykyn And Elsewhere

Bol

Several Sherlock Holmes parodies read as what they are – high-spirited experiments – but the longer stories delve deeper into character: together, they recreate a vanished world of school shops, fagging, Latin prep and hearty teas. The stories in this collection reflect Wodehouse’s own happy schooldays at Dulwich College but they also do a good deal more. Although among his earliest attempts at fiction they give fascinating glimpses of a time when motor cars were novelties, schoolmasters wore mortar boards and gowns, and America was a rising power in the world.The best of them display the author’s love of games and knack for neat plotting. In one, a resourceful teenaged heroine helps a truant schoolboy cricketer by marooning his credulous schoolmaster at the top of a church tower until the match is over. Another describes a boy escaping from the scene of his crime by a passing car, only to be caught out by a last-minute revelation. Several Sherlock Holmes parodies read as what they are – high-spirited experiments – but the longer stories delve deeper into character: together, they recreate a vanished world of school shops, fagging, Latin prep and hearty teas.

Bol Partner

Launched on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, this series presents each Overlook Wodehouse as the finest edition of the master’s work ever published—beautifully designed and faithful to the original. This season, Overlook is pleased to offer the latest two hilarious volumes. The first gathers together Wodehouse’s school stories, not collected in the author’s lifetime.