Not George Washington: Summary & Reading Guide

The writers are not quite as truthful as their hero

Not George Washington is an early collaboration between Herbert Westbrook and P. G. Wodehouse. Its title points to a famous emblem of truthfulness and suggests, with a wink, that the people in this book do not always deserve the comparison. James Orlebar Cloyster wants a literary career and is willing to manoeuvre toward success. Other figures pursue their own interests with similar flexibility. Multiple narrators complicate the reader’s view of what happened and why. I find it a fascinating side road for a Wodehouse fan: less a safe, self-contained comic idyll than a story interested in how an agreeable person can excuse conduct he would condemn in somebody else.

Cloyster is a young writer in a recognisably commercial London literary world. He works around editors, columns, attribution and the gap between producing words and receiving credit for them. The premise reflects aspects of the authors’ own early careers without making every incident a reliable autobiography. The book’s “Orb” newspaper and its “On Your Way” column resemble the real Globe and the “By the Way” work undertaken by Wodehouse and Westbrook. That connection, identified in Terry Mordue’s bibliography, is useful context. It does not turn Cloyster into a transparent portrait of either collaborator. Fiction can borrow a professional atmosphere and still invent its moral choices and surprises.

The co-authorship should never be hidden beneath a modern cover that features Wodehouse more prominently. Westbrook’s name appeared first on the UK first edition’s title page, according to the specialist account. Cassell published that book on 18 October 1907. A US book did not follow in 1909, as an older catalogue entry on this site claimed; Continuum issued the first recorded American edition on 10 April 1980. That is a striking delay and one reason to keep regional dates in separate fields. A bookseller’s later reprint is yet another publication event, not retroactive evidence for an early US original.

The narrative arrangement is part of the fun. If one voice makes a case for its own motives, another can expose the limits of that self-description. A mild, personable narrator is not necessarily a reliable judge of the effect of his actions. The publisher’s discussion of the book notices the comic gap between Cloyster’s professions of virtue and the less admirable decisions he makes. I would read it with an ear for who has the microphone and who stands to benefit from a particular account. That is a different pleasure from waiting for Jeeves to restore order or for Uncle Fred to talk his way into a country house.

This novel belongs near Wodehouse’s other work about writing and performance, though it predates the settled comic persona of his later career. The London press setting has a practical economy: an assignment is paid or not, a name is printed or omitted, and a promising career depends on people with their own ambitions. The collaborators make those pressures funny without making every character wholly innocent. Their young writer’s desire for recognition can be understandable and his methods still questionable. The title’s joke keeps the ethical question in view even when the action is brisk. The reader is invited to enjoy the manoeuvre and notice its cost.

A fan guide should handle “semi-autobiographical” carefully. The partnership with Westbrook and the newspaper resemblance justify a note about lived experience, but a direct mapping of scenes onto biography would require stronger evidence. The book is a crafted multi-voice fiction. Its changes of perspective and literary stereotypes are artistic choices, not the minutes of an office. That makes it more, not less, interesting. We can see Wodehouse and Westbrook trying a form that lets ambition, vanity and self-justification play against each other. The later Wodehouse often protects a generous comic world from lasting harm; this early collaboration has a sharper edge.

For a first reading, I would keep a small mental list of what each narrator knows and what each would like the audience to believe. You need not solve every surprise in advance. The pleasure is watching confidence in one account meet a fact from another. The profession of writing also provides jokes that a reader can recognise today: the wish to be published, the wish to be paid, the wish to appear talented and the fear that somebody else will receive the applause. Those motives do not require familiarity with Edwardian newspaper practice, although the specialist context enriches a second visit.

Not George Washington is worth reading precisely because it is not the most typical recommendation for a newcomer seeking Jeeves. It shows a different experiment, with another author named on the original book and a character whose charm can obscure his conduct. A library shelf that lists it honestly gives the curious reader a choice. Begin here if you want the early literary world and a slightly pointed narrative; move to the later standalone romances for a more familiar buoyancy. Whichever route you take, remember Westbrook’s contribution and the long gap before the first American book. Both are part of this volume’s identity.