The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

About the book

The title story begins with an aspiring composer's irritation at a neighbour's noise, turning an apparent nuisance into the basis of a different relationship. The collection ranges through courtship, artistic work, money troubles, sporting situations, and comic experiments in improving one's prospects. Wodehouse gives individual schemes enough practical detail to make their collapse or transformation satisfying. His narrators often recognize a character's vanity before the character does, allowing a polished phrase to puncture a grand intention. Pieces such as Archibald's Benefit and Sir Agravaine also show the variety of settings available to the comedy. This is a gathering of separate stories rather than a sustained Jeeves narrative, offering an early Wodehouse world in which affection and opportunity frequently arrive through routes that careful planning would never have selected.

• Courtship
• Ambition and chance
• Comic misunderstanding

Why read it

For varied early Wodehouse stories that find comic opportunities in artistic ambition, romance, sport, and unreliable schemes.

Story collection · English text