William Tell Told Again

P.G. Wodehouse was nineteen years old when he wrote this gleeful dismantling of the William Tell legend, and already the comedic genius is unmistakable. The Swiss hero who shot an apple off his son's head to defying a tyrant gets the full Wodehouse treatment: pompous officials reduced to blustering fools, proud peasants bumbling through rebellion, and enough verbal gymnastics to make the whole legendary affair feel like a music hall performance. The prose zings with early Wodehouse energy, the verse is deliberately, beautifully bad, and the whole enterprise has the carefree air of a young man showing off in front of his friends. It is, in short, exactly as ridiculous as a children's picture book about national liberation has any right to be. The legend remains intact enough to satisfy, but everything around it has been lovingly skewered. This is Wodehouse before he became Wodehouse, discovering his voice in the most charming possible way.