P.G. Wodehouse et al.

[Poppy-Hopkins]

I've recently managed to acquire about two thirds of P.G. Wodehouse's novels in audio book format and I'm making my way through them when I can. I really enjoy his writing style and I'd welcome any recommendations that point to similar authors or novels that offer a glimpse of upper-class living back in the early part of last century. Much obliged.

Poppy.

[CaptainWaggett]

EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia series are marvellous character comedies amongst the provincial middle classes. Higher up the social scale there's Nancy Mitford, especially The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate> I'm not a great Evelyn Waugh fan, but you can't get much posher than Brideshead Revisited. Anthony Powell is rather fun too, especially if you know who all his characters are based on.

[Steve Crook]

I've recently managed to acquire about two thirds of P.G. Wodehouse's novels in audio book format and I'm making my way through them when I can. I really enjoy his writing style and I'd welcome any recommendations that point to similar authors or novels that offer a glimpse of upper-class living back in the early part of last century. Much obliged.

Poppy.

Do you mean two thirds of his stories or two thirds of the few that have been made into audio books?
Plum really was very prolific and there are a wealth of characters in hundreds of stories. He didn't just create Jeeves and Wooster.

I would second the Captain's suggestion of the Mapp & Lucia novels by E.F. Benson. They started off as two separate streams with one book about Miss Mapp and a couple about Lucia, but then he brought them together and the result was so much greater than the sum of the parts
He also wrote loads of other stories, totally unconnected with Mapp & Lucia.

Steve

[jaycad]

Not a novel,but i'm certain that you'd enjoy
'The Bolter' by Frances Osbourne,which is a biography of Idina Sackville,the original 'it girl' of the 1920s. It contains plenty of Edwardian upper class families,society balls,stately homes then Paris fashion,The Great War and the scandalous 'Bright Young Things' and their downfall.

[Poppy-Hopkins]

Do you mean two thirds of his stories or two thirds of the few that have been made into audio books?

Quite a number have been adapted for easy listening. Martin Jarvis and Jonathan Cecil seem to have recorded a good number between them; somewhere in the region of 40-50.

I'll definitely pick the Mapp & Lucia novels up, they look a treat; The Bolter looks a good read too, thanks.

Poppy.

[Steve Crook]

Quite a number have been adapted for easy listening. Martin Jarvis and Jonathan Cecil seem to have recorded a good number between them; somewhere in the region of 40-50.

That's good, so that's getting on for half of the books that he wrote

Steve

[Poppy-Hopkins]

That's good, so that's getting on for half of the books that he wrote

Yes, it's still a fair number more than a few. I don't know how old Plum did it, he was voluminous to say the least.

Poppy.

[moonfleet]

I had a great moment with Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best, very funny
Ah, the giant pumpkin competition (and the giant pig competition ) ...