Eggs, Beans and Crumpets

This 1940 collection of nine mostly delightful stories opens with four accounts of the misadventures of the wonderfully inept Bingo Little. Married to best-selling novelist Rosie M. Banks, Bingo strives awkwardly to find a job and then to get it back when his stuffy boss Purkiss, not without justification, fires him. Bingo, a close friend of Bertie Wooster in several Jeeves tales, almost matches Wodehouse's greatest creation with his genius for getting into and out of trouble. The best story, however, is "Anselm Gets His Chance," in which one of the Mulliners arranges for a supposed reformed burglar to steal a stamp collection. It displays Wodehouse's patented twists and turns of plot at their best. The remaining stories, one with Freddie Fitch-Fitch and four with Stanley Ukridge, while charming, are lesser works.