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The Small Bachelor [Paperback]

P G Wodehouse
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Book Description

2 Oct 2008

A P.G. Wodehouse novel

It's America during Prohibition and shy young George Finch is setting out as an artist - without the encumbrance of a shred of talent. George falls in love with Molly, whose imperious stepmother Mrs Waddington insists he's not the man to marry the stepdaughter of one of New York's most fashionable hostesses. Poor George - he doesn't seem to stand a chance.

How George eventually triumphs over the bossy Mrs Waddington makes for a dizzying plot featuring some of Wodehouse's most appealing minor characters - Mullett the butler and his light-fingered girlfriend Fanny, J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the dynamic Beamish Booklets, Officer Garroway the poetic policeman, and Sigsbee H. Waddington, the hen-pecked husband who longs for the wide open spaces of the West.

Oh, and does Prohibition mean there's no booze? In a Wodehouse novel? You'll have to wait and see...


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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Arrow (2 Oct 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099514141
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099514145
  • Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 1.9 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 107,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him (John Humphrys )

For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day (Marian Keyes )

Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already (Lynne Truss )

The incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes! (Kate Mosse )

Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists (Susan Hill )

Book Description

'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour.' Stephen Fry

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars The Small Guy 16 July 2004
By rp
Format:Paperback
P.G. Wodehouse wrote about 9,000 books and no one can have read them all, so I'm not surprised that this book hasn't been reviewed yet. Wodehouse adapted The Small Bachelor from a very succesful play that he wrote. It's set in New York during the prohibition years and the basic jist of the thing is that George Finch a shy, would-be artist (would be if he wasn't so bad at it) falls in love with the daughter of a well to do, pussy-whipped high-flyer who dreams of living out in the wild-west where men are men etc. The prospective mother-in-law (the pussy-whipper) has other plans (in true Wodehousian fashion) and there's also the fact that George's valet is an ex-con whose fiancee (another ex-con) won't go straight but manages to land George in the soup by pretending she is his ex-lover when gate crashing his wedding (in an attempt to steal a necklace of pearls, a wedding present).
Enter level headed, self-help-pamphlet-writing Hamilton Beamish. If anyone can sort it out, then he can (he's a bit of a precursor to Jeeves). But he falls in love with a woman who gets something in her eye, who turns out to be a fortune teller, the fortune teller of the pussy whipper, no less.
There's also a policeman, a pot of pepper, the purple chicken, and anyway who said the necklace wasn't a fake?
This is a superb farce and you can just imagine how well it would have worked on stage. The dialogue is very sharp. I laughed out loud about three times, and was amused throughout.
Fans of Jeeves and Wooster would enjoy this. Also fans of Fawlty Towers. That is the vein in which it is writ.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Small Bachelor; Large Farce 7 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback
`The Small Bachelor' is a Wodehouse farce spanning a larger canvas than usual. George Finch has fallen in love with Molly Waddington and intends to marry her despite her mothers `reservations.' Mrs Waddington wants Molly to marry Lord Hunstanton. Hamilton Beamish has fallen in love with Mrs Waddington's fortune teller and intends to marry her despite his distrust of love at first sight. George's ex-con Valet has managed to marry his sweetheart pickpocket Fanny but she has disappeared from her honeymoon to avail her self of George and Molly's wedding presents. Molly's father is particularly keen that Fanny should get hold of the pearl necklace he's to give Molly so that she should never discover it is a fake. The story is set in New York during prohibition and I'm assuming the love and marriage motif was caused by a lack of anything else to do.

With so much love and marriage going on the butler Ferris steals the show with his views on the matter, `Weren't you happy when you got married Ferris?', `No, Sir.', `Was Mrs Ferris?', `She appeared to take a certain girlish pleasure in the ceremony, Sir, but it soon blew over.' Ferries finally sums up `Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, Sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.'

Surly Wodehouse will not allow such blasphemy stand in the best of all possible worlds and bring all the couples to a happy conclusion? Either way with Wodehouse it's the journey not the destination that is important. Wodehouse himself was fond of `The Small Bachelor' and I am too, I suspect if you were to read it, you also would develop a fondness for it also.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A really enjoyable light read 11 Aug 2012
Format:Paperback
Another delightful tale from PG Wodehouse in which people fall in love and in doing so get terribly confused. To me this is where Wodehouse is at his best - similar to Piccadilly Jim in theme and entertaining throughout.

The characters are the usual mix of loveable rogue, stern matronly woman, pining middle-aged gentleman, disapproving butler etc. in a combination so twisted it's hard to understand how the author makes everything flow so seamlessly together and allow the reader to follow what's going on despite the characters' confusion.

I can't find anything to criticise about this book - I really enjoyed reading it after being rather bogged down by the last novel I read. Wodehouse's writing continues to be a relaxing entertainment in today's world.
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