P. G. Wodehouse, How Right You Are, Jeeves (a.k.a. Jeeves in the Offing, 1960)

It has been an ambition of mine to work through all of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster books. As is so often true of these things with me, I haven't exactly made a lot of progress; I last read one thirteen years ago! This particular one I have had in my collection around seventeen years. I am such a speedy reader!

How Right You Are, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Originally published: 1960
Acquired: August 2008
Read: October 2025

I haven't read all the Jeeves and Wooster books, but I have seen all the episodes of the Fry/Laurie tv adaptation, and I was thus a bit surprised to realize there were books that were never turned into episodes, and thus stories with which I was totally unfamiliar. 

Well, as unfamiliar as one can ever be with a Jeeves and Wooster story, I suppose, as there are a number of familiar beats in all of them, and Wodehouse definitely follows those here: Wooster is accidentally engaged, someone has to give a speech for which they are ill-prepared, people have to pretend to be insane, Wooster's aunt is giving him marching orders that are impossible to execute, someone may have stolen a cow creamer, Wooster has a terrific plan that backfires and Jeeves must extricate him from his own mess—which of course engenders further humiliation.

But you know, it's familiar because it works. I laughed when I was supposed to laugh; I particularly loved all the ins and outs of how Wooster keeps ending up engaged when he doesn't want to. There are numerous laugh-out-loud moments, and the prose itself is the same breezy pleasure that Wodehouse excelled at. I will try to be better about reading more of these; I don't want to defer the pleasure of reading Wodehouse any further!