The Uncollected Wodehouse is a collection of early newspaper and magazine articles and short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. First published in the United States on 18 October 1976 by Seabury Press, New York City, it contains 14 short stories.[1] Five of the stories had appeared in the United Kingdom in the 1914 collection The Man Upstairs, and all had previously appeared in UK periodicals between 1901 and 1915; some had also appeared in the U.S. Five short items are included from 1900–1906 UK magazines, ten from 1914–1919, and nine from the U.S. Vanity Fair magazine.
The collection was edited and introduced by David A. Jasen, with a foreword by Malcolm Muggeridge.[1]
Contents
"When Papa Swore in Hindustani"
United Kingdom: Answers, 24 August 1901
According to David A. Jasen, this was the first of multiple sentimental stories that Wodehouse wrote specifically to please magazine editors. Wodehouse did not approve of the title of the story, which was chosen by the Answers staff.[2] The story is very short and is six pages long in the first edition of the collection. For comparison, "The Good Angel" is 15 pages long and "The Man Upstairs" is 16 pages long.[1]
According to Owen Dudley Edwards, "Tom, Dick–and Harry" was published in the 1909 anthology Twenty-Five Cricket Stories, and has a plot that is very similar to that of the Drones Club story "Tried in the Furnace".[4] The story is ten pages long in the first edition of this collection.[1]
"The Good Angel" (appears in The Man Upstairs collection)
US: Cosmopolitan, February 1910 (relocated to the U.S., retitled "The Matrimonial Sweepstakes")
The Cosmopolitan story "The Matrimonial Sweepstakes", a reset and slightly lengthened version of "The Good Angel", marks the earliest mention of a Lord Emsworth.
US: Pictorial Review, February 1913 (retitled "The Dinner of Herbs" with plot and name changes)
"The Best Sauce" was published in the Strand with illustrations by René Bull.[6] The story is 15 pages long in the first edition of this collection.[1]
US: Ainslee's Magazine, August 1912 (with American characters in France and one name change)
"Death at the Excelsior" (also in Plum Stones, reprinted here from abridged text appearing in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May 1978)
UK: Pearson's, December 1914 (original title: "The Education of Detective Oakes")[7]
US: All-Story Cavalier Weekly, 13 March 1915 (longest of all versions, under the title "The Harmonica Mystery")[8]
"The Harmonica Mystery" was also published in The Saint Detective Magazine (US) in June 1955.[9] "Death at the Excelsior" is the longest story in The Uncollected Wodehouse and is 23 pages long in this collection.[1]
US: Illustrated Sunday Magazine, 12 December 1915[citation needed]
Two of the "articles" collected by Jasen contain dialogue between fictional characters and thus may be considered short-short fiction: "An Unfinished Collection" from Punch, 17 September 1902[10] and "The Secret Pleasures of Reginald" from Vanity Fair, June 1915.[11]
McIlvaine, Eileen; Sherby, Louise S.; Heineman, James H. (1990). P. G. Wodehouse: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Checklist. New York: James H. Heineman Inc. ISBN978-0-87008-125-5.
