The Girl in Blue: Summary & Reading Guide

Jerry West finds the person and the miniature hard to hold

Jerry West meets Jane Hunnicutt on jury service and promptly falls for her, although he is already engaged. His uncle Crispin has financial problems; his uncle Willoughby has money but is reluctant to release Jerry’s inheritance. Jane’s sudden wealth creates another difficulty, because Jerry does not want to appear to pursue an heiress for her money. A stolen Gainsborough miniature called The Girl in Blue adds a search to the romantic confusion. I enjoy the doubled title: there is a painted girl to find and a living woman whose feelings Jerry needs to understand.

The miniature is a compact object around which a very large set of suspicions can gather. A country house contains people with different kinds of access, including a butler who is not quite what he appears. Willoughby’s ownership gives Jerry a reason to take the loss seriously, but the investigation must proceed amid family financial tensions. A painting can be hidden, carried or misidentified; a person’s motive cannot be judged merely by where he stood when it vanished. The stolen image supplies a route through rooms and conversations without turning the novel into a formal detective story.

Jane is not simply the prize at the end of the search. She and Jerry meet in a civic setting, jury service, before their families and finances complicate what the meeting might mean. Her new inheritance changes how he imagines his own conduct will be interpreted. His reluctance to look like a fortune hunter may be honourable, but it can also become another excuse to avoid telling her plainly what he thinks. Wodehouse makes the social meaning of money an obstacle independent of the amount itself. A rich woman is still entitled to decide whom she likes.

The uncles give Jerry opposite varieties of financial frustration. Crispin’s shortage creates a need to keep a household running; Willoughby’s abundance is not readily available to Jerry. A suspect butler, an American corporate lawyer and his kleptomaniac sister broaden the circle around the missing miniature. Each figure may know a different part of the story and be concerned with an object or relationship Jerry has overlooked. I return for the way the lost picture pulls Jerry into action while his more difficult task is to be honest about Jane and the engagement he already has.

Barrie & Jenkins issued the UK first book on 29 October 1970, and Simon and Schuster published the American edition on 22 February 1971. A condensed Canadian newspaper version followed in April 1971. Both original book editions use The Girl in Blue, so there is no regional alternate title to invent. The date on a modern Everyman or Arrow edition identifies that particular printing, not the first appearance of the novel. The book belongs among the late standalone romances, with its miniature and country-house setting clearly identified.

This is a useful example of Wodehouse working with familiar parts without making the new cast interchangeable with an earlier one. An expensive object is missing; a young man loves a woman whose financial position unsettles him; older relations have plans and secrets. Jerry’s jury-service meeting and the specific miniature give those parts a new start. The title invites a playful confusion between art and life, but the story never requires Jane to resemble a painted image. She matters as someone whose choices and circumstances can surprise Jerry.

Choose The Girl in Blue for an affectionate late caper with a stolen miniature and a romantic hero whose scruples make his life harder. It offers a country-house mystery’s movement without asking you to solve a grim crime. I return for Jerry’s first encounter with Jane, the unequal finances of his two uncles and the way a work of art can draw the entire company into the same search. Keep the painted and living girls separate; the pleasure comes from watching their stories cross.