Leave it to Psmith (“the p is silent, as in pshrimp”), the second book in the Blandings Castle saga is notable on several fronts. It’s the first one where we see Blandings as it is portrayed in the rest of the saga: the terraces, the flowerbeds, the yew tree alley, and the atmosphere of the house are better defined than in Something Fresh where the actual location is rather more incidental to the story. It’s the book where we meet the first of Lord Emsworth’s formidable sisters, Lady Constance. (Yes, a previous sister, Lady Anne, is mentioned in Something Fresh but she plays no part at all in the story and never appears again.) Connie appears in most of the saga from here onward and is a constant thorn in the side of her brother. It’s also the book where Angus McAllister, Lord Emsworth’s head gardener first gets mentioned; he too crops up often.
Two other points of interest: one general to the Wodehouse canon, one pertaining to the saga.
Leave it to Psmith is the last Psmith book. He first appears in one of the school books, Mike, written in 1909. There followed two other novels (Psmith in the City, 1910, and Psmith, Journalist, 1915) before this final one.
And this is the book that contains the story of Baxter and the flower pots, something that is mentioned time and again throughout the saga.
Leave it to Psmith is the story of the theft of a diamond necklace belonging to Lady Constance, for reasons too complex to mention here. It has another of Wodehouse’s finest heroines in Eve Halliday. In most discussions among the Wodehouse illuminati she ranks with Joan Valentine and Jill Mariner as the most well drawn, likeable and engaging. Clever, resourceful, intelligent, a strong and faithful friend and extremely courageous in pursuit of the necklace, Eve is one of the very finest. Her changing relationship with Psmith, from the initial gift of the umbrella in the rain outside the Drone Club, to her mistaken belief that he is married to her best friend, through the perceived betrayal over the stolen necklace before the final reconciliation is drawn with perception and insight.
As an aside, it is interesting to note that the women who many would regard as Wodehouse’s finest heroines were written down between 1915, (Joan in Something Fresh) and 1923, (Eve in this volume), with Jill the Reckless (Jill Mariner its eponymous heroine) written in 1921. As his career progressed Wodehouse’s male protagonists tended to be more prominent in the stories and the women, though attractive and important, became less of personalities in their own right. Anne Benedick in Money in the Bank (1946) is the only other heroine (in my opinion of course) that stands out on her own.
Being a Blandings book it does, of course, have its share of imposters – three in this case: Psmith, Eddie Cootes and Liz (Aileen) Peavey. There is also Miss Simmonds who could be thought of as an imposter insofar as she is an undercover detective brought in by Baxter unknown to everyone else.
I would claim that Leave it to Psmith is the first truly great Wodehouse novel. It has superb humour! Chapter 11, called “Almost entirely about flower-pots” is 30 pages of narration telling the afore-mentioned story concerning Baxter and is a priceless read. The description of Baxter slowly going berserk with fury after being accidentally locked out of the house at 3am, looking for the stolen necklace and then waking his Lordship by throwing flower pots through his bedroom window is a piece of funny writing that arguably is some of the finest that Wodehouse wrote. But it’s more than that one chapter! Almost every part is funny. From Freddy conspiring with his Uncle to steal Connie’s necklace, to Psmith protecting Eve from the rain with an umbrella “borrowed” from the cloakroom of The Drones Club; from the description of Lord Emsworth’s looking for his lost glasses to the advert in the Morning Globe that gives us the title of the book – every part of this book is a sheer joy to read. I absolutely love it!
I agree with you John. My two favourite heroines are Joan and Eve. Psmith is utterly wonderful. There would never be a dull moment in the life of the Psmiths. I do wish Plum had written more about them.