The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories

The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories – P. G. Wodehouse – The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories P. G. Wodehouse – A miscellaneous collection mostly of stories concerning relationships, sports and household pets. It does not feature any of Wodehouses regular characters; one however, Extricating Young Gussie, is remarkable as the first appearance of some of Wodehouses most well-known and beloved characters, Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster (although here Berties surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps, and Jeeves role is very small), along with Berties fearsome Aunt Agatha.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; the feeble-minded Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the loquacious Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and the equally loquacious Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.

Although most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, he wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies that were an important part of the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.