Girl on the Boat

P.G. Wodehouse's sparkling early novel proves why he became the undisputed master of comic romance. When the red-haired, dog-loving Billie Bennet boards an ocean liner bound for England, she brings chaos in her wake. She's already engaged to the poet Eustace Hignett, a man so timid he might faint at his own shadow, but two other passengers, longtime admirer Bream Mortimer and Eustace's dashing cousin Sam Marlowe, are about to complicate everything. Throw in the capable Jane Hubbard, who has set her sights on the hapless Eustace, and you have a ship full of mismatched lovers circling each other in ever more absurd configurations. The comedy unfolds through mistaken identities, runaway dogs, and Wodehouse's legendary gift for antic wordplay that still crackles a century later. If you want to understand why Wodehouse made Evelyn Waugh weep with envy, start here.