WODEHOUSE, P.G. Young Men in Spats.

With Three Stories Omitted from the UK Edition

WODEHOUSE, P.G. Young Men in Spats. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company. 1936.

8vo. Publisher’s green cloth, lettered and decorated in darker green to upper board and spine, top-edge green, fore-edge untrimmed, illustrated dust-jacket by ‘Roese’ priced at $2.00 to front flap, with publisher’s code ‘2311–36’ to back flap as called for by McIlvaine; pp. [6], 297, [1 (blank)]; closed tear to bottom left corner of front panel of dust-jacket (c. 35 mm) and to bottom edge of rear panel (c. 20 mm), very minor wear to edges, but overall dust-jacket crisp and bright, sunning to cloth at spine and edges; otherwise, a very good copy.

First US edition in book form, first printing of a collection of eleven stories recounting the adventures of the Drones Club set, featuring familiar Wodehouse characters such as Mr. Mulliner and Freddie Widgeon.

The Drones Club was modelled on Buck’s Club in Mayfair, founded in 1919 by young officers after the First World War. The term ‘drone’, referring to a male bee that does no work and lives off others, neatly captured the stereotype of wealthy, idle young gentlemen of the post-war era.

These stories were first serialised in the UK in various issues of The Strand in May 1931 and between March 1934 to April 1936. In the US, they appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Red Book, and This Week from 1933 to 1936. They were first collected in book form in the UK on 3 April 1936, followed by the US edition on 24 July 1936. This present US edition features three stories which were omitted from the UK edition: ‘There’s Always Golf!’, ‘The Letter of the Law’, and ‘Farewell to Legs’.

Mcllvaine A55b.

SKU: 2126290