A classic Jeeves and Wooster story from P G Wodehouse, one of the masters of comic fiction, read by Blake Ritson.

'Mr Wooster,' he said, 'you are a typical young man about town.'
'Oh thanks,' I responded, for it sounded like a compliment, and one always likes to say the civil thing.

Bertie Wooster has been rather overdoing the metropolitan life, so on doctor's orders, finds himself retiring to the quiet hamlet of Maiden Eggesford to 'sleep the sleep of the just and lead the quiet Martini-less life'. Only the presence of his irrepressible Aunt Dahlia shatters the rustic peace as an imbroglio develops, involving a stolen cat, an over-sensitive racehorse, and some star-crossed lovers. Wooster's quick-thinking butler Jeeves, as always, comes to the rescue.

Today: 'Trying to brazen it out' - Bertie is still trying to extricate himself from a very unwelcome betrothal, while avoiding the terrifying Pop Cook. Must he rely again on his quick-thinking butler, Jeeves?

The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P G Wodehouse was born in 1881 in Guildford, Surrey, in 1881. He was created a Knight of the British Empire in 1975 and died the same year at the age of ninety-three. Jeeves and Wooster were perhaps his best-known creations; 'Aunts Aren't Gentlemen' was published in 1974, and was the last novel to feature the literary duo.

Reader: Blake Ritson
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett. Show less