WODEHOUSE, P.G. If I Were You.

Wodehouse’s Copy

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

8vo. Publisher’s presentation binding in dark green hard-grain morocco, borders filleted in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, top-edge gilt, others uncut, turquoise endpapers; pp. [6], 305, [1]; upper joint expertly repaired, lower joint cracked but holding firm, light wear to extremities, boards a little rubbed; internally near fine; authorial inscription in black ink to David Jasen ‘To | David | from | P.G. Wodehouse | Jan 15 – 1960’ to front free endpaper (see below).

First edition, first printing, this copy especially bound for Wodehouse by his US publisher and presented to him in the year of his fiftieth birthday, and later presented by Wodehouse to his biographer David Alan Jasen (1937–2022).

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 novel was based on an unproduced play of the same name by Wodehouse and Guy Bolton (1884–1979), to whom this book is dedicated. 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: 2126335