Psmith Journalist

The history of Psmith Journalist is a little more complicated than might be anticipated. It was first published in volume form in 1915. However, it was originally serialised in the boys' paper The Captain as far back as 1909-10. I don't know why it took so long to achieve separate publication. It's a strong book, very different from what we might expect from PGW in that it deals relatively seriously and factually with the gangs of early 20th century New York - though it is true that this basic setup is farcically disrupted by the intervention of the unruffleable Psmith.

As I've mentioned before, Ionicus seemed to take especial pleasure in the Psmith covers. Here, the shabby offices of the paper Cosy Moments are beautifully evoked, with a glimpse of old New York visible through the window. Psmith is immaculate as ever, but, leaning against a filing cabinet, seems completely at home - as he is in every place. Behind the desk is the firebrand editor Billy Windsor, and on the other side is a certain Francis Parker, a sleek and immaculate young man who is however the mouthpiece for much nastier forces. This is a very carefully composed cover, in the balance of figures, the colours, and the detail in every corner of it. One of the very best. This title was first published in Penguin in 1970, and I would say the Ionicus cover dates from then.

Here's the first page of the book - Wodehouse's Preface in which he assures readers that the events described have a strong basis in reality. The font is Intertype Times, and the book was printed, appropriately enough, in the USA - Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The tale concerns an inoffensive little journal for the home, called Cosy Moments. When the editor goes off on holiday for the good of his health, it is left in the hands of an ambitious and frustrated young man from Wyoming, Billy Windsor. With Psmith's encouragement, he turns the paper into a sensational and crusading anti-corruption sheet.

For the most part, Psmith treats the whole thing as a game. However, there is one aspect which he treats very seriously. In one episode, he stumbles upon a thoroughfare called Pleasant Street, a place of horrific slum tenements. Having investigated what they are like, Psmith decides as follows:

"I propose... to make things as warm for the owner of this place as I jolly well know how. What he wants, of course... is disembowelling. I fancy, however, that a mawkishly sentimental legislature will prevent our performing that national service. We must endeavour to do what we can by means of kindly criticisms in the paper."

It is this crusade which leads to attacks on the paper by the gangs of New York. After some digging they discover that the owner of the tenements is as certain Stewart Waring, "one of the biggest men in New York", who happens to be running for the post of City Alderman. Waring had previously been Commissioner of Buildings, but had to resign when a music hall built under his watch collapsed on the third night due to its poor construction, "killing half the audience." That was five years ago, however, and it has since been put about that he is a reformed character. "The other papers said it was a shame, hounding a man who was sorry for the past and who was trying to make good now.... He's been shooting off a lot of hot air lately abut philanthropy and so on. Not that he has actually done a thing - not so much as given a supper to a dozen news-boys; but he's talked, and talk gets over if you keep it up long enough."

Anyway, finally the man Waring is against the ropes, worsted, of course, by the fiery Billy Windsor and the debonair Psmith. They have the proof that could break him. What, Waring asks, will they do? Psmith replies:

"The right plan would be to put the complete kybosh (if I may use the expression) on your chances of becoming an alderman. On the other hand, I have been studying the papers of late, and it seems to me that it doesn't much matter who gets elected. Of course the opposition papers may have allowed their zeal to run away with them, but even assuming that to be the case, the other candidates appear to be a pretty fair consignment of blighters. If I were a native of New York, perhaps I might take a more fervid interest in the matter, but as I am merely passing through your beautiful little city, it doesn't seem to me to make any very substantial difference who gets in. To be absolutely candid... If the People are chumps enough to elect you, then they deserve you."

So he allows Waring to run for Alderman without exposing his nastiness; but Psmith does insist that Pleasant Street is renovated completely and made fit for human habitation. A practical solution, and studiously unpolitical in the narrow sense of the word.

For Wodehouse, this is almost angry; very nearly a serious political statement. I can't immediately think of another instance. For that alone, mark it well.

Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin

I will admit frankly that the only reason I'm choosing to feature this book at this time is that the cover seems so appropriate to the festive season. Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin is late period Wodehouse, first published in 1972 when he was over ninety years old. It forms the third part of what one might loosely call the Monty Bodkin Trilogy, the other two books being Heavy Weather (1933) and The Luck of the Bodkins (1935).

It's difficult to think what might have spurred PGW to continue this saga in the 1970s after such a long hiatus. Clearly, he felt the story had not been satisfactorily concluded in the previous instalment. As happened in the cases of other long-running sagas (the Fink-Nottle/Bassett romance springs to mind) he took a late decision to change the formula. Here, Monty Bodkin, long-term beau of the formidable Gertrude Butterwick, changes his mind. The way to happiness is complicated by the requirement to keep in the good books of dim but temperamental Hollywood mogul Ivor Llewellyn. In my memory, it was a not-so-good tale; but I was pleasantly surprised by it upon rereading it a few months ago. In these last novels, Wodehouse seems to relax a little. He is not so worried about plot, and the style is not so strenuous. (In the 1960s especially, the zest seemed to go out of Wodehouse, and he tried to replace it with unflagging busyness.) This novel is only 170 pages long, and its successors were even shorter.

It is set in Linotype Times. Here we go:

Unfussy, straightforward.

This edition was first published by Penguin in 1974, only two years after the first edition. The Ionicus cover dates from this time, too. I think it is one of his very best. The atmosphere of the nightclub is conveyed wonderfully (it looks much more fun than any actual nightclub could ever have been): Llewellyn dancing enthusiastically with the rather Grace-Kelly-ish heroine Sandy Miller while Monty Bodkin looks on, despondently. Get those reds and yellows! It's been mentioned to me that Ionicus's figures could be rather lifeless (and I agree), but surely that criticism couldn't be levelled here.