I am rejoined by Gwen Sheldon to peruse the first collection of Wodehouse short stories for a general audience, The Man Upstairs and Other Stories (1914), a bumper crop of nineteen stories and a favourite of both of us. Because there is so much to discuss, we have split the episode into two parts. In the first part we look at the background of the book and Wodehouse's life when he wrote them (living cheaply in New York), and discuss the first eight stories. There will be spoilers.

Content note: mention in "Rough-Hew Them How We Will" of attempted suicide and of animal cruelty in "The Man Who Disliked Cats".

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Stories covered in this instalment, with start times:

"The Man Upstairs" 12m 33s

"Something to Worry About" 23m 52s

"Deep Waters" 32m 10s

"When Doctors Disagree" 41m 47s

"By Advice of Counsel" 49m 13s

"Rough-Hew Them How We Will" 57m 03s

"The Man Who Disliked Cats" 1h 02m 57s

"The Fatal Kink In Algernon" (later rewrite of the above) 1h 11m 50s

"Ruth in Exile" 1h 17m 40s

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned

The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories

Over Seventy

Uneasy Money (preface)

"When Papa Swore in Hindustani"

The Code of the Woosters

Joy in the Morning

A Gentleman of Leisure

"Jeeves and the Chump Cyril" 

The Swoop

The Luck Stone

"Sir Roderick Comes To Lunch"

Right Ho, Jeeves

"The Fatal Kink In Algernon"

"Aunt Agatha Takes the Count" (AKA "Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer")

The Adventures of Sally

Reference works consulted

Richard Usborne, Wodehouse at Work to the End

Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life

Norman Murphy; A Wodehouse Handbook

Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Also mentioned

The Ainu people of Japan

O. Henry, "The Gift of the Magi"

F. Opper, Alphonse and Gaston (comic strip)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

William Shakespeare, Othello and Hamlet

Lord Roberts

Agatha Christie's character Hercule Poirot

George Herriman, Alexander and Krazy Kat (comic strips)

Michael Tisserand, George Herriman: A Life in Black and White

The Book of Ruth (The Bible)

Herbert Westbrook

The Billiken

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