Lord Emsworth and Others: Summary & Reading Guide

Two books with one leading crime wave

Lord Emsworth and Others is a trap for anyone who assumes an American title is merely a different label on the same pile of stories. The British volume appeared in 1937; the American The Crime Wave at Blandings followed later that year. Both lead with the extended story “The Crime Wave at Blandings,” and both include “Buried Treasure” and “The Masked Troubadour.” After those three, their contents diverge substantially. The specialist annotation counts only three shared stories. I would put that fact on the outside of any collector’s note. Buying the American book does not give you the nine-story British selection with a new cover, and owning both need not mean you have simply bought the same collection twice.

The title story is a wonderful reason for either book to exist. Lord Emsworth wants a less regulated life at Blandings. Other people are convinced that his house, garden and family require a more efficient hand. An apparently idyllic country scene becomes the setting for a sequence of actions that people will interpret very differently. I love the story’s scale: long enough for more than one person’s plan to collide, short enough to keep the air of a single unruly visit. Calling it a “crime wave” is part of the fun. The language of public alarm is brought into a household whose problems often arise from people trying far too hard to manage one another.

The British “others” are genuinely varied. Alongside the leading Blandings piece sit golf stories, Ukridge cases, and tales associated with other Wodehouse circles. It is not a second volume of Emsworth-only adventures. The variety can be a gift to a reader exploring outward from the castle: after one long story in Shropshire, the book opens doors into the Oldest Member’s moral universe and Ukridge’s gloriously precarious enterprises. It also makes the contents page essential. A library should link a story to the volume in which it appears, but should never infer that the volume’s title makes every included story a Blandings work. Series shelves are ways to find books; they are not substitutes for accurate tables of contents.

The American The Crime Wave at Blandings has a different assortment. It includes “The Medicine Girl,” a shortened version related to Doctor Sally, and other pieces that did not form the British set. Conversely, the British volume’s three golf stories had already appeared in the American Young Men in Spats, and its Ukridge stories would reach an American book in Eggs, Beans and Crumpets. That cross-collection traffic is precisely why the two 1937 publishers could make different selections without inventing entirely new stories. A reader tracking one particular piece must follow the story and its regional book appearances, not merely compare the dates of collections at a glance.

The annotated contents make the difference concrete. The British book has nine stories: “The Crime Wave at Blandings,” “Buried Treasure,” “The Letter of the Law,” “Farewell to Legs,” “There’s Always Golf,” “The Masked Troubadour,” “Ukridge and the Home from Home,” “The Come-Back of Battling Billson,” and “The Level Business Head.” The American book has seven: the three shared pieces, plus “The Medicine Girl,” “Romance at Droitgate Spa,” “All’s Well with Bingo,” and “Tried in the Furnace.” These are not interchangeable reading itineraries. A modern reprint or omnibus may choose yet another selection, so I would check the physical contents before using either 1937 title as shorthand for a particular story list.

The book also offers a lesson in Wodehouse’s publishing geography. A magazine appearance in one country can precede a book in another, and a story can sit in different collections on opposite sides of the Atlantic. “The Masked Troubadour,” for example, has a variant American magazine history with changed framing and names. The details belong to the story-level research, but the broader lesson is visible from the two book tables: an editor’s selection helps define a collection. Lord Emsworth and Others is an original UK object with its own design; The Crime Wave at Blandings is an original US object with a different one. Neither is a simple later compilation of the other.

For a fan seeking Emsworth himself, I recommend reading the leading story first and following it to the earlier castle tales. Its account of the Earl’s struggle against managerial interference is a fine introduction to his particular kind of resistance. For a fan seeking a varied Wodehouse evening, the British volume’s shifts of world are a feature rather than a flaw. For a collector, the American book is an equally interesting but distinct companion. The choice depends on whether you want a specific story, a particular regional book or simply a good starting point. The page’s UK and US contents lists are intended to make that choice visible before any retailer link is offered.

I return most often to the title story’s affectionate argument about freedom. Emsworth is not a strategic genius; he would rather be with his garden than win a social contest. Yet other people’s plans can make his wish for peace an act of rebellion. That impulse survives the book’s bibliographical complexity. One can smile at the long story in either regional volume and then take a quite different route through the remaining pieces. I keep both titles in the catalogue because the difference is real. It is also part of the fun of building a proper Wodehouse library: the more closely one looks at a seemingly familiar spine, the more varied its neighbouring shelves become.