WODEHOUSE, P.G. Spring Fever.

A Collection of Classically Wodehousian Characters

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Spring Fever. Garden City: Doubleday & Company. 1948.

8vo. Publisher’s maroon cloth lettered and decorated in white to spine, fore-edge untrimmed, illustrated dust-jacket by Paul Galdone with publisher’s codes (‘262–48’, ‘875–48’, and ‘877–48’) as called for by McIlvaine; pp. 223, [1 (blank)]; price-clipped, closed tear (c. 25 mm) midway down jacket spine, a little chipping to spine ends and corners, sunning to spine and spotting to whites of jacket, spotting to top-edge of textblock, pushing to spine ends; very good.

First US edition, first printing, published simultaneously in the UK on 20 May 1948, of this novel featuring none of Wodehouse’s regular characters, but a cast of familiar Wodehousian types.

Spring Fever follows the trials and tribulations of wealthy American businessman G. Ellery Cobbold, and his attempts to disentangle his son from a Hollywood actress by sending him to England. The novel belongs to the post-war phase of Wodehouse’s career, when his reputation was hindered by his Berlin wartime broadcasts. Writing to his friend William Townend in April 1945, Wodehouse remarked that he had several books ‘shuffling their feet nervously in the anteroom, wondering if they will ever get into print’ (Wodehouse, p. 143). While his reputation remained deeply troubled in Britain, Wodehouse retained a substantial American readership and ultimately settled in the United States from 1947, where his reception was considerably more favourable.

Wodehouse subsequently adapted Spring Fever for the stage for Edward Everett Horton, relocating the action to America. The project ultimately remained unproduced, although Wodehouse later drew on both the novel and the play for The Old Reliable (1951), reworking the characters and plot into a new novel set against the background of Hollywood.

Mcllvaine A67a. See Wodehouse, Performing Flea (1961).

SKU: 2126284