WODEHOUSE, P.G. Cocktail Time.

The Third Uncle Fred Novel

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Cocktail Time. London: Herbert Jenkins. 1958.

8vo. Publisher’s red cloth, lettered in black to spine, in the unclipped illustrated dust-jacket by Hall; pp. 222, [2 (publisher’s advertisements)]; slight wear to edges of jacket, light spotting to edges of textblock; offsetting and spotting to endpapers; very good; old Sotheran’s booklabel to front free endpaper.

First edition, first printing of Wodehouse’s third novel to feature the energetic and mischievous Uncle Fred.

When Uncle Fred knocks Sir Raymond Bastable’s top hat off with a Brazil nut fired from a catapult, the pompous barrister (preparing to stand for Parliament) is persuaded to write a novel exposing the supposed misdeeds of the younger generation, assuming that the culprit was a young member of the Drones. His book is published anonymously as ‘Cocktail Time’, and a series of schemes involving its authorship, royalties and film rights soon ensue.

The novel had first been published in a shorter version in the Ladies Home Journal (April 1958).

Mcllvaine A81a.

SKU: 2126257