The Small Bachelor

A P.G. Wodehouse novel It's America during Prohibition and shy young George Finch is setting out as an artist - without the encumbrance of a shred of talent. George falls in love with Molly, whose imperious stepmother Mrs Waddington insists he's not the man to marry the stepdaughter of one of New York's most fashionable hostesses. Poor George - he doesn't seem to stand a chance.

How George eventually triumphs over the bossy Mrs Waddington makes for a dizzying plot featuring some of Wodehouse's most appealing minor characters - Mullett the butler and his light-fingered girlfriend Fanny, J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the dynamic Beamish Booklets, Officer Garroway the poetic policeman, and Sigsbee H. Waddington, the hen-pecked husband who longs for the wide open spaces of the West.

Oh, and does Prohibition mean there's no booze? In a Wodehouse novel? You'll have to wait and see...

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as Plum) wrote more than ninety novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Anglers Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentines Day.