Young Men in Spats: Summary & Reading Guide

The Drones acquire a wonderfully crowded shelf

Young Men in Spats promises a social type and delivers many ways for a clubman to become entangled in his own good intentions. Herbert Jenkins published the British book on 3 April 1936 with eleven stories; Doubleday, Doran issued the American version on 24 July with twelve. The Drones Club is an essential gathering point, though the final three British pieces come through Mr Mulliner’s narration. This is a collection with more than one storytelling frame. Take each predicament on its own and notice how a club conversation can give it a second comic life.

“Fate” introduces Freddie Widgeon to the book’s readers. His confidence and romantic vulnerability are a potent combination, because a simple decision can become a public demonstration of disastrous timing. “Tried in the Furnace” brings Pongo Twistleton into the British volume before his better-known partnership with Uncle Fred in “Uncle Fred Flits By.” That sequence is delightful to trace, but the tales work separately. Uncle Fred’s arrival is especially pleasing: an older and apparently helpful relative whose appetite for improvisation can turn a young man’s manageable problem into an adventure. Neither Pongo’s first appearance nor Uncle Fred’s entry makes the entire book their joint novel.

The comedy has several flavours. “The Amazing Hat Mystery” makes an object and an assumption do a great deal of work. “Good-Bye to All Cats” suggests a more domestic line of resistance. “The Luck of the Stiffhams” and “Noblesse Oblige” explore the embarrassment of having a role others take too seriously. Wodehouse gives a short story room for one strong mechanism and sends it through increasingly awkward consequences. The volume is made for dipping into on a journey, with one complete social disaster before the next station.

The three Mulliner pieces complicate any neat equation between a Drones story and a tale told at the Drones. “Archibald and the Masses,” “The Code of the Mulliners” and “The Fiery Wooing of Mordred” let the Angler’s Rest narrator bring his family connections to an adjacent comic society. They are not further chapters of Freddie Widgeon’s life. This is one of the book’s special pleasures: related worlds can share a cover without pretending to have identical casts or narrators. The later shelf group is an aid to readers, not a claim of narrative uniformity.

The regional tables explain a surprise. The American volume omits “Tried in the Furnace” and “Trouble Down at Tudsleigh,” adding three Oldest Member golf stories: “There’s Always Golf!,” “The Letter of the Law” and “Farewell to Legs.” Those golf pieces appeared in the British Lord Emsworth and Others, while the displaced Drones tales found American book homes elsewhere. This is an exchange of actual contents, not a mere variant spelling. A golf lover may prefer the American mix, while a reader tracing Pongo’s first book appearance will want the British selection.

Earlier magazine names add another layer: “Fate” appeared in American Cosmopolitan as “Compromised!” and “There’s Always Golf!” in Redbook as “A Triple Threat Man.” These are title variants, not additional hidden stories. Madame Eulalie’s annotation also warns that some Penguin printings carry an erroneous 1922 copyright date, which cannot change the book’s 1936 first publication. I begin with “Fate,” follow Uncle Fred if he catches my eye, and then compare the regional contents before choosing a copy. The title sounds like one club-room evening; the book gives many distinct, beautifully sprung disasters.