Very Good, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse (Doubleday, Doran, 1930)
audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (Blackstone, 2011)
Wodehouse give the impression he could dash off a Jeeves & Wooster story between breakfast and elevenses, and would happily do so should ever he feel himself wanting for joie de vivre. Jonathan Cecil gives perfect voice to the frivolous restorative fizz.
Hot Water
by P G Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1932); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (Blackstone, 2012)
Not from one of Wodehouse’s famous series, but ably representative of his work. There are facetious conversations and flippant undertakings aplenty—ill-fated engagements; romantic entanglements and misunderstandings; comedowns and comeuppances—all steaming towards each other like ocean liners converging on an iceberg.
Money for Nothing
by P G Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1928); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (BBC, 2009)
More or less the quintessential Wodehouse novel, with a country manor, a romance frustrated by misunderstanding, comings, goings, comedy mishaps, and several greedy protagonists locked in a tangle of one-upmanship, all exquisitely facetious in the telling, the prose gilded in its loquacity.
The Inimitable Jeeves
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1923); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (BBC, 1990/2009)
This fix-up novel brings together eleven Jeeves & Wooster short stories, the linking thread of which is Bertie’s friend Bingo Little, whose compulsive falling in love brings endless trouble to his old school chum. Jonathan Cecil’s reading lends zest to the mishaps.
Carry On, Jeeves
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1925); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (1991)
This collection of short stories forms the perfect introduction to one of literature’s great characters: the valet Jeeves, who carries himself with a reserved brand of Holmesian all-knowingness, manipulates social situations and takes on a near omnipotence in saving Bertie Wooster’s bacon.