Tales of St. Austin's
1903
P.G. Wodehouse was just twenty-two when he published this, his debut book, and already the machinery of his genius is whirring. Set at the fictional St. Austin's public school, these twelve stories capture the particular chaos of adolescent life: the cricket matches that hang in the balance, the masters who must be outwitted, the friendships that define everything and nothing all at once. The humor here is gentler than the razor-sharp comedies that would follow, but the ear for dialogue is already faultless, the eye for human absurdity already merciless. What elevates these tales beyond mere period piece is their understanding that school is a country of its own, with its own laws, its own hierarchies, its own urgent dramas played out in cloisters and on fields. For readers who know Wodehouse only through Jeeves, these stories reveal the forge where his comic vision was tempered.
Editions
X-Ray
“No one so dislikes being punished unjustly as the person who might have been punished justly on scores of previous occasions, if he had only been found out.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“The High Street was full of farmers, cows, and other animals, the majority of the former well on the road to intoxication. It is, of course, extremely painful to see a man in such a condition, but when such a person in endeavouring to count a perpetually moving drove of pigs, the onlooker's pain is sensibly diminished.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“It is impossible to glean any sense from them, as the Editor mixes up Nipperwick’s view with Sidgeley’s reasoning and Spreckendzedeutscheim’s surmise with Donnerundblitzendorf’s conjecture in a way that seems to argue a thorough unsoundness of mind and morals, a cynical insanity combined with a blatant indecency.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
