Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Help with the old "deftly written"

In Plum Sauce, Richard Usborne-long regarded as the world's leading authority on P. G. Wodehouse-brings together the best of his much admired commentary on the great man's words to form the perfect companion to the nearly one hundred novels of "the most consistently funny writer the English language has yet produced" (The Times).

Plum Sauce also contains snippets of Wodehouse's most outrageously hilarious prose, organized in categories from Animals ("Beach's bullfinch continued to chirp reflectively to itself, like a man trying to remember a tune in his bath") to menservants ("Jeeves lugged my purple socks out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of a salad"). Usborne introduces in depth all the beloved major characters-Jeeves and Wooster, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred, Lord Emsworth, and the Blandings circle-and sketches the rest of the Wodehouse cast-from Gussie Fink-Nottle to the chorus of Aunts and Drones. Lavishly illustrated with original dust jacket artwork and sketches from the Strand Magazine, Plum Sauce is the ultimate source for both aficionados and novices just beginning to "scratch the old lemon."