WODEHOUSE, P.G. Spring Fever.

Wodehouse Bounces Back

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Spring Fever. London: Herbert Jenkins. 1948.

8vo. Publisher’s orange cloth lettered and decorated in black to spine and boards, illustrated dust-jacket by Frank Ford with printed price 8/6 to front flap; pp. 256; light scuffing to white back panel of jacket and spotting to verso, otherwise a crisp and bright example of the jacket, some spotting to edges of textblock, pushing to spine ends; near fine .

First UK edition, first printing, published simultaneously in the US 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 as a play for Edward Everett Horton, relocating the action to America. Horton’s other commitments prevented the play from being produced, and Wodehouse continued to rework the material through several drafts. 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 world of Hollywood.

Mcllvaine A67b. See Wodehouse, Performing Flea (1961).

SKU: 2126237