Book #17

The World of Mr. Mulliner
P.G. Wodehouse

Yes, that is right, back with more of the stories told by Mr. Mulliner, the man with a thousand cousins and anecdotes for every occasion.  Now, I have to admit to a bit of a cheat.  The World of Mr. Mulliner is an omnibus edition containing all of the Mr. Mulliner stories.  The World of Mr. Mulliner includes all the stories found in the three previous collection of Mr. Mulliner stories, Meet Mr. Mulliner, Mr. Mulliner Speaking and Mulliner Nights.  Now, if you have been following my attempt to read 100 books in one year (yes, I know I am not going to make it, but I carry on), then you will have seen two of those titles, Mr. Mulliner Speaking and Mulliner Nights, among those I have read.  Well, my cheat is that I do not own any of those books, I just have a copy of the omnibus, The World of Mr. Mulliner. At the start of the year, I noticed that I had read all the stories from Meet Mr. Mulliner and it made a perfect chance to start reading from where I had left off.  When I had read all the stories in Mr. Mulliner Speaking, I wrote my review, and did the same when I finished reading all the stories from Mulliner Nights.

Each of the first three volumes contained nine short stories.  After that, there were still 14 Mr. Mulliner stories that were never collected into a single volume.  I had already read a few in a volume called Blandings Castle, which includes a Blandings Castle (another P.G Wodehouse series of stories and novels) novella (or whatever) and several stories.  The fourteen remaining Mr. Mulliner stories are only collected together in The World of Mr. Mulliner.

Like the other volumes, the stories are silly in the extreme, and lots of fun.  Wodehouse is generally the very definition of light read, and these stories do nothing to change our opinion of his deft touch at comedy, even if a few of these are a bit over the top.