Uncle Fred
4 primary works
Book 1
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".
Book 2
Although the story of Uncle Dynamite concerns Bill Oakshott's struggle to find ways of getting his girl while financing his inheritance at Ashenden Manor, the real hero of the book is Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of Ickenham. This noble lord describes himself as 'one of the hottest earls that ever donned a coronet' and he was also one of his creator's favourite characters, featuring in three other novels. Lord Ickenham sees it as his mission to bring a little joy into the lives of others, and on this occasion he surpasses himself.
Book 3
If Lord Ickenham had not succumbed to the temptation to dislodge the hat of irascible QC, Beefy Bastable, with a well-aimed Brazil nut, the latter's famous legal mind might never have been stimulated to literature. But the incident provoked Beefy to write his expose of the younger generation, a novel so shocking that it caused endless repercussions for its hapless author and sparked off a series of outrageous misunderstandings. And it seems that only the inventive talents of Lord Ickenham himself might resolve matters.
Book 4
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