WODEHOUSE, P.G.; Paul GALDONE (illustrator). Joy in the Morning.

Inscribed ‘With Best Wishes’

WODEHOUSE, P.G.; Paul GALDONE (illustrator). Joy in the Morning. New York: Doubleday & Company. 1946.

8vo. Publisher’s grey cloth, lettered and decorated in green to spine, fore-edge untrimmed, illustrated dust-jacket by Paul Galdone with printed price $2.00 to front flap and publisher’s codes ‘2470–46’ and ‘2471–46’ to front and back flaps respectively as called for by McIlvaine; pp. [6], 281, [1 (blank)], with black-and-white illustrations throughout the text by Paul Galdone; a little toning to jacket but otherwise crisp, pushing to spine ends with some fraying to clot; near fine; inscribed by P.G. Wodehouse to the front free endpaper in blue ink with the message, ‘To | Theresa Mase | With best wishes | from the author | P.G. Wodehouse | May 1947.’

First edition, first printing, this copy inscribed by the author ‘with best wishes’, of the eighth full-length novel to feature Bertie Wooster and his resourceful valet Jeeves.

In this story, Bertie is obliged to brave the marital home of his formidable Aunt Agatha and her husband, Lord Worplesdon, where he also finds himself reunited with his former fiancee, Lady Florence Craye. Wodehouse began writing the novel when he was in Le Touquet, before his internment in France, and completed it in Germany after his wife, Ethel, brought the unfinished manuscript with her to Berlin. Although written against the backdrop of war and internment, the novel remained a source of considerable enjoyment for Wodehouse. As he wrote in a letter to Peter Townend on 3 October 1939, ‘I am well on in a new novel, and enjoying it tremendously, as I feel I can take my time. My only qualms are about how to get more typewriter ribbons.’ (Ratcliffe, p. 284)

The novel was first published in the US on 22 August 1946, and the UK edition followed on 2 June 1947.

Mcllvaine A65a. See Ratcliffe ed., P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters (2011).

SKU: 2126330