Young Men in Spats

297 pages. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's green cloth with dark green lettering to spine and pictorial cover in original jacket. (APG: 062b) First American edition.

Young Men in Spats is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 3 April 1936 by Herbert Jenkins, London, then in the United States with a slightly different selection of stories on 24 July 1936 by Doubleday, Doran, New York.

The collection, recounting the adventures of various members of the Drones Club (except for the last one), features many familiar characters from Wodehouse's other writings, including Freddie Widgeon and the irrepressible Mr Mulliner. One story, "Uncle Fred Flits By", features the first appearance of Pongo Twistleton and his Uncle Fred, who would go on to feature in four novels, including two appearances at Blandings Castle. The US edition contains a slightly different selection of stories from the UK version. "Tried in the Furnace" and "Trouble Down At Tudsleigh" had not previously appeared in the US, and were held back so they could garner greater income from magazine sales. (Both stories eventually appeared in Cosmopolitan.) These two stories were accordingly replaced by three Oldest Member golf stories, "There's Always Golf", "The Letter of the Law", and "Farewell to Legs". These three Oldest Member stories had all appeared in US magazines in early 1936; they all later appeared in the UK in Lord Emsworth and Others (1937). After their Cosmopolitan appearances, "Tried in the Furnace" was included in the US-only collection The Crime Wave at Blandings (1937), and "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh" was included in the US edition of Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940).

Condition:

Light sunning to extremities and spine. Jacket chipped at corners and spine ends, light edge wear, light soiling else a very good copy in like jacket.