Barmy in Wonderland (Everyman's Library P G WODEHOUSE) Hardcover – 29 May 2009

Write a Review of a Wodehouse lovel? Where to start? If you are contemplating this [excellent] volume you are probably aware of what to expect. If new, you should not expect gritty true to life plots, HowEver do expect to laugh out loud and have fellow travellers on your train or bus to enquire what it is that you are reading. This volume is a well presented and very readable copy of an excellent book. Buy it now!

A quality item , that arrived as promised , lovely !

It's nice to see one of Bertie Wooster's Drones Club chums in a book of his own. This may not be Wodehouse's finest work but it rattles along merrily and the murky world of Broadway producers is charmingly brought to life. Barmy proves to be not so barmy after all, in business or in love. There are many worse things to do then spend a few evenings in with Barmy in Wonderland.

Great read

Cyril `Barmy' Fotheringay-Phipps has been despatched from his London flat and his patronage of the Drones Gentleman's Club at the insistence of his Uncle to learn the ropes of the Hotel business where due to some spirits and a chance meeting with actor Mervyn Potter a chalet is unfortunately burned to the ground.On being discharged from his position as desk clerk Potter secures Barmy an opening as a Broadway producer which he accepts as he has fallen in love with the production secretary, one Dinty Moore.It true Wodehouse fashion engagement fall like the leaves in August and the play `Sacrifice' changes hands more often than a clock maker. All in all not the greatest Wodehouse farce but it is quite a legacy to live up to. One of Wodehouse's poor days still greater than the best days of any of the writers whom can only beat him on any literacy list by virtue of their position in the alphabet.

This late, light and short (178 pages) Wodehouse is the tale of a young man, a friend of Baertie Wooster, who invests a small inheritance in a Broadway show because he has fallen in love with the producer’s secretary, of what ensures thereafter. No doubt informed by Wodehouse’s own writing days in theatre this is lively romp but I can’t help feeling that the old man’s heart was less in it than some of his real gems. There is a butler, though he only appears in one seen, aunts by the name of Agatha are mentioned, but nothing more, The most memorable character is the lawyer J Bromley Lippincott “a tall, dark, cadaverous man who looked about sixty, as he had probably looked since the age of ten”. But a poor Wodehouse, like an indifferent Woody Allan movie, is better than most people can manage at their peak.