The Mating Season

From the information on the reverse side of the title page, this seems to have been created by Ionicus in 1971. It's very unusual in his work from this time in being, not a depiction of events in carefully drafted settings, but character studies floating in space. The characters are well delineated (we are given Ionicus's only depiction of Gussie Fink-Nottle, and the only criticism I might make is that it is too much like Gussie Fink-Nottle to be entirely pleasant), and we have an excellent Bertie and Jeeves in the middle.

There is however one point I'd like to raise in this connection. Ionicus, at his best, was an excellent depicter of character; but what he could not do, seemeingly, was consistently show a character over a series of images. I would ask the reader to glance again at the covers of Carry On, Jeeves, Jeeves in the Offing and Much Obliged, Jeeves. Each has its charm and its virtues, especially the first two, and each is a carefully considered depiction of Jeeves and Bertie. But the Bertie of Carry On, Jeeves has dark, mousy hair; in Much Obliged, Jeeves it is grey; and here in The Mating Season it is coppery brown. The Jeeves of Carry On, Jeeves is quite simply different from the Jeeves of Much Obliged, Jeeves, and both are different from the Jeeves of The Mating Season. They even have differently shaped heads. The same strictures could be made about Ionicus's depictions of Lord Emsworth, the Hon Galahad Threepwood, and some others. It did worry me slightly, in the way that matters that are of no importance whatsoever can worry a person. But now I know how to think about the matter, and I am at peace. What we have over these series is the characters of Jeeves, Bertie and the others, all excellently depicted, only by different actors.

The type is Monotype Bembo: a little different from most of the others, larger and easier to read:

I have very fond memories of my first encounter with this novel, at about the age of fourteen. I had devoured the "classic" Jeeveses: the short stories, plus Right Ho, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters (named by my father as the true classics, as of course they are); I had also read Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954), a later and inferior title in the series; but The Mating Season (1949), which I now consider the last of the first-rank Jeeves novels (not counting the sweet swan-song, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974)), was a quite new discovery to me, the title's existence becoming apparent at the same moment as the book itself manifested itself in the bookshop. It revisits some of the ideas from previous books (the Market Snodsbury Grammar School Prizegiving becomes the King's Deverill Village Concert; the Aberdeen terrier Bartholomew in The Code of the Woosters becomes the shaggy dog Sam Goldwyn; and so on), but it plays some excellent variations along the way. It also has a great, and unusual ending, with the promise of Bertie for once in his life facing up to the dread Aunt Agatha. (A very similar act of defiance occurs at the end of Uncle Dynamite (1948); was there a special importance for Wodehouse himself in this?) And Wodehouse also manages to wreak a petty but very satisfying revenge on A.A. Milne, who had heaped abuse on Wodehouse during the war years.

Psmith in the City

I've put Ionicus's cover right at the top of this entry for one very good reason: it's absolutely gorgeous. Those dark greens and browns (the Wodehouse logo just the right shade of green to match); the two main figures (foppish Psmith on the left; his friend the straight-down-the-line Mike Jackson on the right) in very characteristic attitudes; the as-ever perfectly captured décor so exactly right that one can almost smell the ink. The title first appeared in Penguin in 1970, so it appears to be one of Ionicus's very first Wodehouse designs.

Psmith (the P is silent, "cp. the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-baulk", as Psmith helpfully explains in Mike) really shouldn't work as a character. When I think of him in the abstract, he is a kind of exemplar of privilege: deliberately affected in speech and vocabulary, insouciant, condescending, perpetually treating the world as if it were some childish game put on for his personal entertainment. Dash it all, the man even went to Eton!

But in practice the character is, I find, irresistible. His manner has been cultivated to cause the maximum of irritation to those nominally above  him - when we first meet him in Mike (1909) that means schoolmasters; and here, in Mike's sequel Psmith in the City (1910) it means his employers in that renowned establishment the New Asiatic Bank. As Wodehouse himself had been employed as a clerk at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank from 1900 to 1902, we don't have to go far to see where he found his material for this funny and perceptive but in parts even slightly bitter novel. It feels, on the whole, like Wodehouse's revenge on his former employers, an account of his experiences, transmuted by the addition of the one character who could be counted on to give better than he got in any situation.

The novel's supposed hero is Mike Jackson, the real Wodehouse substitute, a brilliant cricketer but otherwise honourable, slightly slow-witted and even a little humourless. It is taken for granted that working in a bank is the last thing any self-respecting soul would want to do. Escape is the goal, and in Mike's case the alternative is cricket as a profession. Almost any means is permissible: tricking, cheating, lying, and generally running rings round the stolid respectable managers who stand in our heroes' way. In these days it all seems rather daringly subversive.

The text is set in Intertype Times. Less flamboyant than, say, Monotype Garamond, its restraint somehow seems to fit with the repressive atmosphere of the book's locale:

Ionicus's covers for the Psmith novels are consistently good: atmospheric, elegant, and with a real care for artistic effect unfortunately lacking in a handful of other covers. I have the impression that Ionicus had an especial liking for Psmith; it's a great pity that he never did Mike and Psmith (the second half of Mike) which appeared in Penguin a few years later with a truly dreadful cover by another artist.

As I also have a later (1984) reprint of Psmith in the City, still with the Ionicus picture but using the revised cover design, I include this below. I very strongly hold that the later design is inferior: not as well balanced in the placement of author and title, clunky in typography, and with the picture placed just a little bit too high. Well, never mind. I can see that this title is one of the rare ones that has escaped the ghastly designs of the Millennium Penguin editions and the current Arrow versions. Let us be grateful therefore for small mercies.

Meet Mr Mulliner / Mulliner Nights

Wodehouse wrote to his friend William Townend on 30 June 1945: "God may have forgiven Herbert Jenkins for the jacket to Meet Mr Mulliner, but I never shall." (quoted in Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: a Life [Penguin, 2005], page 352)

This is the first edition cover of Meet Mr Mulliner (1927), the image that fired his wrath (image stolen from the Internet):

Well, there's one obvious feature which might easily have made him wince: the arrow pointing directly at Mr Mulliner's groin shows, at the very least, a lack of concern in detail. But I'd also argue that the general principle of portraying Mr Mulliner as a hearty, hail-fellow-well-met sort of a geezer with a revoltingly jovial manner was off the mark.

This is the start of the first Mulliner story, in which the narrator of these tall tales is introduced (and let me mention in passing, in case I forget later on, that the type in this Penguin edition is Monotype Garamond):

I will frankly admit there is nothing in this description which directly contradicts the picture of the ghastly outsider portrayed on the Jenkins cover; but all the same, and especially bearing in mind the general impression of a man with a quiet but compelling manner which comes out through the stories, I picture Mr Mulliner in very different terms. Even the passage above contrasts his manner with that of the stereotypical boastful fisherman.

It may, of course, be that Ionicus's cover has coloured my view. It is, in my opinion, one of his very best. It appears to date from 1976. Here it is.

Here he is, then, a mild man of middle-age, dully respectable, just the man to tell the tallest tales in the world. The man seated on the right is just correct for the "I" who passes through the Angler's Rest to absorb the latest doings of the Mulliner clan. Ionicus, always at his best with furniture and other interior trappings, is in his element, and the mounted fish on the wall are an excellent touch. The colours are carefully chosen; the atmosphere of woody and rather fuggy cosiness can almost be smelt.

I've written previously about the importance of a good cover, and I don't want to labour the point. Wodehouse was one of the greats, and he deserved to be treated well. That is all.

There are three dedicated collections of Mulliner stories, but the second, Mr Mulliner Speaking, has never appeared in Penguin at all and so was never illustrated by Ionicus. Here, however, is the third, Mulliner Nights (1933), with a cover probably created in 1971;

As those familiar with the stories in this volume will realise, the scene portrayed is that of Adrian Mulliner, the detective, attempting to smile pleasantly at a Baronet, and only succeeding in creating an impression of sardonic superiority which prods the Bart's tender conscience, with startling consequences. The image is not as beautiful as that of Meet Mr Mulliner, but it has its points. Ionicus, it will be noticed by those comparing the different covers, varied the techniques used, and here he employs an unusual means to suggest the background figures at a wedding reception: a sort of sketchy watercolour method without his usual cartoon outlining, which keeps the figures out of focus so as to keep the viewer's attention on the foreground drama.

The Mulliner stories are not my absolute favourites from the Wodehouse oeuvre, but they have their charm.