Tales of Wrykyn

The stories in this collection reflect Wodehouse’s own happy schooldays at Dulwich College but they also do a good deal more.

Although among his earliest attempts at fiction they give fascinating glimpses of a time when motor cars were novelties, schoolmasters wore mortar boards and gowns, and America was a rising power in the world. The best of them display the author’s love of games and knack for neat plotting.

In one, a resourceful teenaged heroine helps a truant schoolboy cricketer by marooning his credulous schoolmaster at the top of a church tower until the match is over.

Another describes a boy escaping from the scene of his crime by a passing car, only to be caught out by a last-minute revelation.

Several Sherlock Holmes parodies read as what they are – high-spirited experiments – but the longer stories delve deeper into character: together, they recreate a vanished world of school shops, fagging, Latin prep and hearty teas.