WODEHOUSE, P.G. If I Were You.

Based on an Unproduced Wodehouse Play

WODEHOUSE, P.G. If I Were You. New York: Doubleday & Company. 1931.

8vo. Publisher’s orange cloth, lettered in maroon to upper board and spine, fore-edge untrimmed, top-edge stained yellow, illustrated dust-jacket by Henrietta Starrett with printed price of $2.00 to front flap and publisher’s codes ‘981’ and ‘1894’ to front and back flap respectively as called for by McIlvaine; pp. [6], 305, [1 (blank)]; spine of jacket very lightly sunned, minor wear to spine ends of jacket pushing to cloth spine; previous owner’s name in blue ink to front pastedown, otherwise internally clean and bright; a very good copy in a crisp jacket; contemporary bookseller’s label of Hudson’s Bookshop, Detroit to rear pastedown.

First edition, first printing of this novel, based on an unproduced play of the same name by Wodehouse and Guy Bolton (1884–1979), to whom this book is dedicated.

If I Were You follows the romantic trials of Tony, fifth Earl of Droitwich, whose life is complicated by a long-hidden family secret. The play was never produced, and the story was instead serialised in the US in The American Magazine from April to July 1931, and in the UK in the Daily Mail from 5 June to 3 July 1931. Wodehouse subsequently expanded the text for book publication, with this US edition issued by Doubleday, Doran & Company on 3 September 1931 and the first UK edition following shortly afterwards, published by Herbert Jenkins on 25 September.

Wodehouse and Bolton later adapted the novel into a new play, Who’s Who?, which opened at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre on 20 September 1934.

Mcllvaine A44a.

SKU: 2126323