WODEHOUSE, P. G.

£200 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Prince and Betty. First edition of the author's early romance novel, preceding the first British edition by three months.While writing the novel, his first tailored to an American readership, Wodehouse freely admitted repurposing parts of his earlier story Psmith Journalist, serialized in The Captain magazine between October 1909 and February 1910. "Its composition says a lot about Wodehouse's attitude to his material... Wodehouse cheerfully cannibalized his own work, combining a novelettish love story with the plot of Psmith Journalist, and using different protagonists, including a character called 'Smith'" (McCrum, p. 96).Wodehouse finished writing the novel in April 1911. Enthusing about its upcoming publication, he wrote to Leslie Bradshaw: "It's going to be a corker - good love interest - rapid action from the first chapter - length about 100,000 words. W. J. Watt is bringing it out in the fall... All the characters are American" (quoted in McCrum, pp. 95-6).

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