Last year, my dad started celebrating Christmas in November when he realised that Panetone was available for sale and started snapping them up. This year, I’m ‘starting Christmas’ (used verrrrry loosely) even earlier this year with my first Christmas read: Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit.

I’m not sure why I picked this up, given that I’ve never read anything by P.G. Wodehouse before, but I’ve heard quite a few good things about Jeeves and have been meaning to read the stories. I’m glad I did because this was such a fun collection.

Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit has more than Jeeves-centered short stories. This collection of thirteen stories includes tales featuring Uncle Fred, Ukridge, and of course, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.

My first impression of Bertie was that he’s a bit like Lord Peter Wimsey, but without the brains. But it took me a lot less time to warm up to the tone of the stories and I found myself chucking quite a few times. The stories are mostly poking fun at the British upper classes, but you don’t need to be familiar with how things are in that set to find them funny.

The Jeeves stories are funny (I love how Jeeves is in control of everything), but my personal favourites from this collection were:

• Honeysuckle Cottage: This story makes fun of writing and was a hoot. A “serious” novelist of mysteries moves into his romance novelist aunt’s cottage after her death and finds himself falling into the plot of a romance novel. Can he escape marriage before he finds himself proposing? I loved how the story managed to poke fun at genre tropes as well as self-serious writers/genres.
• The Heel of Achilles: This is about golf and though I haven’t picked up my clubs in a while, I absolutely enjoyed it. A tycoon suddenly picks up golf (in order to win a girl) and absolutely kills it – until the day of the tournament.
• Romance at Droitgate Spa: This story poked fun at snobbery. Poor Freddie Fitch-Fitch needs his haughty uncle to approve of his ‘low born’ fiancee in order to marry. They hatch a plan to get him to approve of her but will they get their happy ending when a past rival appears? I really liked how this story based its snobbery not on just on class but on ailments; it made for an effective twist at the end.
• Sundered Hearts: Another story about love and golf. This time, with a slightly happier ending for the male golfer, but just as fun as The Heel of Achilles.

These four were my favourite stories in the collection, but I enjoyed everything and there weren’t any stories that I didn’t like. This was a brilliant introduction to various P.G. Wodehouse characters for me and I look forward to reading more of his work.

Featured Image: Photo by Me