Service With a Smile

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published 1 December 1966
With the Duke of Dunstable trying to steal his pig to sell to Lord Tilbury, mischievous Church Lads camping in his park, his sister Constance bossing him unmercifully, and Lavender Briggs, his secretary, making life miserable, Lord Emsworth has little time to concentrate on the invasion of Blandings Castle by yet another impostor. But Bill Bailey, a.k.a. Cuthbert Meriwether, has inveigled himself into the castle to be with his beloved, Myra Schoonmaker, who is staying there under the eagle eye of Lady Constance, and Lady Constance is determined to thwart him. In the end virtue conquers vice: the lovers are united, Dunstable defeated and Tilbury trounced, but only through the brilliant plotting of Frederick, Earl of Ickenham whose greatest triumph is to marry off Lady Constance to an old admirer, Myra's father. In the end everyone is happy who deserves to be, none more so than Lord Emsworth who at one fell swoop frees himself from the tyranny of a duke, a secretary and a sister

Something Fresh

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published February 1969
The one thing that could be expected to militate against the peace of life at Blandings is the constant incursion of impostors. Blandings has imposters like other houses have mice. On this particular occasion there are two of them - both intent on a dangerous enterprise. Lord Emsworth's secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is on the alert and determined to discover what is afoot - despite the distractions caused by the Hon. Freddie Threepwood's hapless affair of the heart. The first "Blandings Castle" novel sets the standard for the parade of impostors on the premises.

Full Moon

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published 31 December 1947
The thought of being cooped up in Blandings Castle with Clarence, the Earl of Emsworth, the perennially youthful Galahad and with the Earl's younger son, Freddie Threepwood, openly appalled Colonel Wedge. It was, he grimly asserted, like being wrecked on a desert island with the Marx Brothers. But the arrival of Tipton Plimsoll at Blandings Castle considerably brightened the Colonel's horizon. For Tip-ton was a rich young American and rich young Americans were, in the Colonel's opinion, quite the most desirable companions for his daughter, Veronica, the dumbest beauty listed in the pages of Debrett. The stage was set for a great romance, or so the Colonel thought, and so it might have been had the knowledge of Freddie's erstwhile engagement to Veronica been withheld from the jealous Tipton, or if Prudence, the Earl's niece, had not been forcibly parted from her unsuitable lover, Bill Lister. On such incidents do great issues depend. However, Uncle Gaily, who combined the ready resource of a confidence trickster with the zeal of a cheerful crusader, intervened with an ingenious scheme to reunite the young lovers. It was a master-plan. How the plot miscarried at the crucial stage and in doing so caused a social and domestic revolution unparalleled in the history of Blandings Castle, is revealed in this most hilarious of chronicles.

Pigs Have Wings

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published 1 May 1977
Lord Emsworth's quick-witted brother must stop the portly Sir Gregory Parsloe's plan to slim down Emsworth's prize porker with a new miracle weight-loss drug.

Summer Lightning

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published 29 April 1971
Once a man of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's calibre and reputation starts taking pen in hand and writing Reminiscences, the nobility and gentry of all England recall past follies committed in his company and tremble.

All rally to prevent their publication, and the consequences prove somewhat unusual: Lord Emsworth's prize-winning sow, Empress of Blandings, is kidnapped; yet another imposter is introduced into the ancestral home; and once again Blandings Castle proves too much for the Efficient Baxter.


Pongo Twistleton is in a state of financial embarrassment, again. Uncle Fred, meanwhile, has been asked by Lord Emsworth to foil a plot to steal the Empress, his prize pig. Along with Polly Pott (daughter of old Mustard), they form a deputation to Blandings Castle, bent on doing a "bit of good".

This is a "Blandings" collection. The ivied walls of Blandings Castle have seldom glowed as sunnily as in these wonderful stories - but there are snakes in the rolling parkland ready to nip Clarence, the absent-minded Ninth Earl of Emsworth, when he least expects it. For a start the Empress of Blandings, in the running for her first prize in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show, is off her food - and can only be coaxed back to the trough by a call in her own language. Then there is the feud with Head Gardener McAllister, aided by Clarence's sister, the terrifying Lady Constance, and the horrible prospect of the summer fete - twin problems solved by the arrival of a delightfully rebellious little girl from London. But first of all there is the vexed matter of the custody of the pumpkin. Skipping an ocean and a continent, Wodehouse also treats us to some unputdownable stories of excess from the monstrous Golden Age of Hollywood.

The World of Blandings

by P.G. Wodehouse

Published 18 February 1980

'P. G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century' Sebastian Faulks

'Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny' Arabella Weir

Welcome to Blandings Castle - where there's always something going on and a rollicking good time to be had. In this collection of assorted stories, dive into the wonderful world of Wodehouse where a comedy of errors awaits at every turn. Meet the regulars at Blandings: the engagingly dotty Lord Emsworth, his terrifying sister Lady Constance and his secretary the Efficient Baxter, whose attempts to bring order to the castle always end in disarray. And revel in the hijinks galore that come with the addition of lovestruck young men, headstrong young women, iron-willed aunts and imposters roaming the grounds - not to mention the Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's prized pig.