A Few Quick Ones
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A Few Quick Ones is a collection of ten short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the U.S. on 13 April 1959 by Simon & Schuster, New York, and in the UK on 26 June 1959 by Herbert Jenkins, London.
The collection entirely features stories from Wodehouse regular series: four Drones Club members (two Freddie Widgeon and two Bingo Little), two golf stories (one with the Oldest Member and one without), two Mr Mulliner, one of the famous Jeeves with Bertie Wooster, and one Ukridge.
[edit] Contents
- "The Fat of the Land" (Drone Freddie Widgeon)
- "Scratch Man" (Oldest Member golf)
- US: Saturday Evening Post, 20 January 1940 (as "Tee for Two")
- UK: Strand, September 1940 (as "Tee for Two")
- "The Right Approach" (Mr Mulliner)
- "Jeeves Makes an Omelette" (Jeeves)
- Canada: Toronto Star, 22 August 1958
- US: Ellery Queen, August 1959 (as "Jeeves and the Stolen Venus")
- "The Word in Season" (Drone Bingo Little)
- UK: Punch, 21 August 1940
- US: Harper's Bazaar, 15 September 1940
- US: This Week, 18 May 1958 (as "Bingo Little's Wild Night Out")
- "Big Business" (Mr Mulliner)
- US: Collier's Weekly, 13 December 1952 (without Mulliner framework)
- UK: Lilliput, March 1953 (without Mulliner framework)
- "Leave It to Algy" (Drone Bingo Little)
- "Joy Bells for Walter" (A golf story without the Oldest Member)
- US: This Week, 17 October 1956 (as "Keep Your Temper, Walter")
- UK: John Bull, 16 February 1957 (as "Keep Your Temper, Walter")
- "A Tithe for Charity" (Ukridge)
- US: Playboy, April 1955
- "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust" (Drone Freddie Widgeon)
- Apparently first published in the 1949 omnibus Best of Wodehouse[1], as "Freddie, Oofy, and the Beef Trust"
The Ukridge story "A Tithe for Charity" did not appear in the original U.S. edition, which instead featured a 1958 "exclusive" pseudo-Drones story entitled "Unpleasantness at Kozy Kot" (actually a rewritten version[2]of the 1928 Jeeves story "Fixing It for Freddie" collected in Carry On, Jeeves). "Jeeves Makes an Omelette" was a rewritten version of the 1913 Reggie Pepper story "Doing Clarence a Bit of Good", which appeared in the UK collection My Man Jeeves.
[edit] See also
- List of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, categorised by series
[edit] References
- Sources consulted
- Kuzmenko, Michel (The Russian Wodehouse Society) (2007-08-05 update). "A Few Quick Ones". Bibliography. Archived from the original on 2007-08-11.
- Midkiff, Neil (The Wodehouse Society [US]) (2001-10). "The Wodehouse short stories". P. G. Wodehouse pages. Archived from the original on 2007-02-17. With first publications and appearances in collections.
- Netherlands, The P. G. Wodehouse Society (2005-03-01 revision). "Short Stories by P. G. Wodehouse". Bibliography. Archived from the original on 2007-05-01.
- Endnotes
- ^ Kuzmenko says "1948" but without any detail; Midkiff says "first? pub. in The Best of Wodehouse (Pocket Books, 1949)"; Netherlands just says "1949". Additionally, Blandings.org.uk says "Possibly first published in the 1949 US omnibus collection The Best of P. G. Wodehouse"[1]; Tony Ring at PGWodehouseSociety.org.uk seems to ignore a previous publication and gives "1959 June [in] Star Weekly".
- ^ Reggie (2007-07-08 update). "Wodehouse stories: Unpleasantness at Kosy Kot" (sic). Blandings, a Companion to the Works of P. G. Wodehouse. Archived from the original on 2007-07-23.
