The Code of the Woosters

1938, 1975 Penguin edition
P. G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters
Bought used for $1.50, but "for copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.," so I'm not sure where it came from.
Very worn paperback
B

This is the favourite Jeeves & Wooster novel for Alexander Cockburn and many others, and I'm baffled as to why.  It is good to see Madeline and Gussie and Aunt Dahlia again, as well as to meet "Pop Bassett" and Roderick Spode the dictator, as well as Stiffy and Stinker.  (Probably the funniest nicknamed couple in all of Wodehouse.)  But there are no hilarious moments like in Right Ho, and the plot isn't jaw-dropping.  It's just good solid work, like his short stories.

There's a reference to a plot in the Blandings Castle saga, but I've never been that fond of Wodehouse's other works, so I couldn't tell you about their chronology.  This is set within a year of the summer of Right Ho, Jeeves, and with the "Black Shorts" that would seem to make it 1933 or later.  Wodehouse doesn't get particularly political, but he's certainly as ready to mock fascists as he is to mock communists. 

The cover art for this edition, by Ionicus, is frustrating because it captures a dramatic moment in the story, and yet Bertie has been illustrated as a plump, grey-haired man with pince-nez.  Bertie at this point is in his early 30s and he's always been slender.  He does not wear spectacles, although he does make them out of himself.