This is SO IMPORTANT.
To me, personally. To you, probably not so much, but to me, finding a collection at the used bookstore with three of P.G. Wodehouse's short school novels from the 1900s was some real holy grail shit. It's not the earliest Wodehouse writing -- "The Gold Bat" is 1904 and there are two novels ("The Pothunters" in 1902 and "A Prefect's Uncle" in 1903) plus scads of short stories starting in 1901 -- but it's the earliest I've been able to get my hands on, bringing me one step closer to the lofty goal of owning All The Wodehouse.
This being early Wodehouse, over a decade before a story involving his most famous creations (and a decade of writing for P.G. Wodehouse means a dozen novels, several dozens short stories, and probably some plays), it doesn't have that smooth, perfect flow of words he later developed, and public schoolboy shenanigans are far from the recognizable touchstone they were at the turn of the 20th century. But you still find those nuggets of paragraphs and sentences and names that sing.
Wodehouse is a genuine writing idol for me and it's good for the seat of the pedestal to see his early work, bumps and all.
It's a cricket bat, not bat the animal. Sorry guys.
