Bertie Wooster Sees It Through

1955
P. G. Wodehouse
Bertie Wooster Sees It Through
B-

It's so nice to have Bertie back as narrator that I don't mind that this is one of the weaker stories in the series.  It refers to events in Joy in the Morning (1946), which I'm not sure if I've read, but that book has Aunt Agatha becoming the stepmother of Lady Florence Craye, Bertie's former fiancée who's now betrothed to "Stilton" Cheesewright.  Both Florence and Stilton appear in this novel, as do Aunt Dahlia (who's only been publishing Milady's Boudoir for three years somehow), and Roderick Spode, now Lord Sidcup.  So we're further along in the Wooster chronology, but I'm not sure how much, beyond it's July and Humphrey Bogart is a popular actor.  (1941 maybe?)

Yes, there are typos, including a whole line of narration replaced by a line that also appears later.  The original title of the story was Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, which fits the story better, but perhaps the publishers of this collection didn't want "Jeeves" in two titles of the five.  For those keep tracking, this is at least the second time that Bertie has grown facial hair that Jeeves has disapproved of.  There's a reference to David Niven's mustache, which almost counts as in-joke, since Niven played Bertie back in 1936. 

Wodehouse has a bit of fun with his own age in his musings on book dedications, telling his friend, "I have rather gone off dedications these last forty years or so," and speaking of how it was "back at the turn of the century."  By this point, Wodehouse was about 74, and he had indeed been publishing since 1902.  He was far from done of course, and there's still one more story in this collection....