This was the first Blandings book I ever read, when I was about 12 years old. The style and the characters grabbed me immediately, even though the story could be a little confusing with the multiple references to the earlier part of the story that is told in Summer Lightning.

Heavy Weather was written in 1933, four years after Summer Lightning and continues the story a few days after the end of that book. It introduces yet another of Emsworth’s sisters, the formidable Lady Julia Fish, the mother of Ronnie Fish who we met in Summer Lightning. We also meet Monty Bodkin who used to be engaged to Sue Brown, Ronnie’s fiancee. Monty is initially the assistant editor of Tiny Tots, the admirable children’s paper published by the Mammoth Publishing Company. He gets fired in chapter two and through his uncle Gregory Parsloe manages to wangle himself the position as Emsworth’s secretary – without Clarence’s agreement which subsequently leads to many misunderstandings, and eventually his getting fired again in chapter eleven. Monty occurs in several Wodehouse books following his time at Blandings, though no more in the saga.

The story follows the twin tracks of Julia and Connie trying to put a stop to Ronnie’s engagement to Sue, and also trying to keep Gally’s reminiscences from falling into the hands of Lord Tilbury (“Stinker” Pyke as he is known to Gally), owner of the Mammoth Publishing Company who has the publishing contract on them. The ghastly Pilbeam is still at the Castle, theoretically keeping an eye on the Empress, and finds himself being employed by both sides in the argument over the book.

Unlike most Blandings books there are no imposters in Heavy Weather. However the Empress does get stolen again, by Ronnie (yes, again!) who this time threatens to take her joyriding unless Clarence releases his money. It all works out in the end of course, to the joy of most, apart from those who think that Ronnie is marrying beneath him. The final sentence of the book signals the awarding of the silver medal to the Empress in the Shropshire Show, as she will become the first pig ever to win it twice.

This is Wodehouse again at full throttle. Funny, intricate plotting, and characters both likeable and not. You never do forget your first Wodehouse, and I love this one.

Published in 1929, Summer Lightning was actually the second Blandings book that I ever read –  the first was, ironically, the one that follows on from this one.

It introduces one of Wodehouse’s greatest characters, Lord Emsworth’s younger brother Galahad. Gally, as he is known to all, had been a flamboyant man-about-town in his younger days who has moved back to Blandings to write his reminiscences. A man of imagination and with a sense of humour he brooks no nonsense from Connie or (as we shall see later) his other sisters. The description of him in the first chapter is a classic:

A thoroughly misspent life had left the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, contrary to the most elementary justice, in what appeared to be perfect, even exuberantly perfect physical condition. How a man who ought to have had the liver of the century could look and behave as he did was a constant mystery to his associates. His eye was not dimmed nor his natural force abated. And when, skipping lithely across the turf, he tripped over the spaniel, so graceful was the agility with which he recovered his balance that he did not spill a drop of the whisky-and-soda in his hand. He continued to bear the glass aloft like some brave banner beneath which he had often fought and won. Instead of the blot on a proud family he might have been a teetotal acrobat.

We also have most of the Blandings posse – Emsworth, Connie, Beach, and the Empress herself, plus one nephew, Ronnie Fish and another niece, Millicent Threepwood. Millicent is secretly in love with Emsworth’s secretary Hugo Carmody and Ronnie is secretly engaged to Sue Brown, a girl in the chorus at the Regal Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.

Without giving away all of the plot suffice it to say that the story revolves around the theft of the pig by Ronnie (in order to find it again and get into Emsworth’s good books) and the pursuit of the reminiscences by Connie and Sir Gregory Parsloe in order to stop them being published. The plot twists and turns as others become embroiled, Connie gets Baxter back to help get rid of the reminiscences, Ronnie gets jealous of both Hugo and Pilbeam (a private detective), and of course the almost obligatory imposter (Sue)  makes her way into the Castle and is then exposed but in the end she has Gally on her side and love wins out over all obstacles.

Summer Lightning contains the first occurrence of something that happens at regular intervals through the rest of the saga: the theft of The Empress. Over the next few books she is stolen by several people – Ronnie, the first to do it, in this book, does it again in Heavy Weather. Gally does it too further on into the saga.

If we can think of Something Fresh as showing Wodehouse developing into a good humorous writer, and Leave it to Psmith being, as I said in an earlier blog the first of his really great books, then Summer Lightning shows his writing at the very best. This is Wodehouse at his peak! The humour is there, the plotting is superb and the standard is set for at least the next 30 years.

Blanding Castle is the third book in the Blandings saga chronologically but was actually published after the fifth book, Heavy Weather. Subtitled “And Elsewhere” it is a collection of short stories that was first published in 1935, and consists of six stories about Blandings, one Bobby Wickham story and five Mr Mulliner stories about Hollywood. As good as the second half of the book is, my interest here is with that esteemed Shropshire establishment and thus this blog will be about those first six stories.

Well, mainly about those stories! Before getting into them, the preface to the book is worthy of note because famously it’s where Wodehouse discusses what he calls “the Saga habit”.

(The author) writes a story. Another story dealing with the same characters occurs to him, and he writes that. He feels that one more won’t hurt him and he writes a third. And before he knows where he is, he is down with a Saga and no cure in sight.

He then talks about his saga habit in regard to both the Jeeves books and the Blandings ones, and refers to the habit leading to ever decreasing intervals between one book and the next. And it’s the preface that allows me accurately to place these stories within the story line, because, and I quote: “these stories come after Leave it to Psmith and before Summer Lightning“.

So to the stories.

The first one, Custody of the Pumpkin, is when Lord Emsworth is in what proves to be a short lived phase of pumpkin growing, and trying for the prize for pumpkins at the Shropshire Show. It involves Freddie eloping with a relative of McAllister the head gardener, his Lordship being almost arrested for picking flowers in Kensington Gardens, and then Freddie’s new father-in-law turning out to be an American millionaire manufacturer of dog biscuits who offers Freddie a job in the company in New York. The latter prompting one of those Wodehouse laugh-out-loud moments that occur from time to time:

Lord Emsworth could conceive of no way in which Freddie could be of value to a dog-biscuit firm, except possibly as a taster; but he refrained from damping the other’s enthusiasm by saying so.

Three of the next stories are concerning Freddie, his new bride and his new job promoting the dog biscuits, Donaldson’s Dog-Joy. We also meet another of Emsworth’s sisters, Lady Georgiana Alcester, and these stories being set around Blandings there is, naturally, an imposter; Popjoy, in reality the Rev Rupert (Beefy) Bingham, in the story Company for Gertrude.

There are two stories that particularly stand out in the canon and in the saga. Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey is the first appearance of the Empress of Blandings, the prize black Berkshire sow who features in almost all of the subsequent books; and the pigman George Cyril Wellbeloved. As I mentioned above, this volume was published in 1935 but Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey was clearly written (or at least planned) far earlier because it is mentioned in the preface to Summer Lightning, the fourth volume in the saga.

The other brilliant story is Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend which is always one of the contenders in discussions of the funniest short stories that the Master ever wrote. The description of the tea tent at the annual Blandings Parva School Treat is wonderful:

All civilised laws had obviously gone by the board and Anarchy reigned in the marquee. The curate was doing his best to form a provisional government consisting of himself and two school-teachers, but there was only one man who could have coped adequately  with the situation and that was King Herod, who – regrettably – was not among those present.

Lord Emsworth spends most of his time being harrassed by his sisters, but every now and then he rebels and this story is one of those. It’s great to see him facing down both McAllister and Connie – we’re cheering him on.