Right Ho! Faulks to revive Jeeves, Wooster
Jeeves will return to save the day.
Sebastian Faulks, the author of numerous novels, including one featuring Ian Fleming’s superspy James Bond, is to revive one of the most popular pairs of characters in humorous fiction ever since P.G. Wodehouse, their creator, died leaving an unfinished novel in 1975.
Random House India said the book, titled “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells”, would be “the first officially-sanctioned novel since Wodehouse’s death”. The Wodehouse Estate was quoted as saying, “...We are thrilled that so skilful and stylish a novelist, and so perceptive and discerning a reader, has agreed to bring to life the immortal characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster for the enjoyment of today’s audience in a homage to P.G. Wode-house.” The happy world of Britain’s upper classes a hundred years ago will float back into these hard economic times this year just as Wodehouse’s first novels lightened the air in the uncertainty of the early 20th century as the world slipped into war and then depression.
One of Wodehouse’s best-loved characters, Jeeves is the unflappable valet who serves his master Bertie Wooster, among the idle rich educated at Eton and Oxford, and is most able in circumstances that befuddle his young gentleman.
Faulks describes the opportunity as “an honour to be asked by P.G. Wodehouse’s family to work with these greatly loved characters”. “Wodehouse is inimitable, but I will do the very best I can, with respect and with gratitude for all the pleasure the books have given, but also with a light heart...”
“Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster novels have long been adored classics here in India and we couldn’t be more delighted that they will be given a fresh new look by a writer of Faulk’s stature,” said Random House India MD Gaurav Shrinagesh.
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