As long-time readers know, Overlook Press (Everyman’s Library, in Great
Britain) is publishing a complete uniform hardcover edition of Wodehouse,
which is a great and glorious thing. Every so often four new books come
out, and I get them, and I read them with delight.

I’ve been a Wodehouse fan for years, and naturally I’ve read many of them
before. But once in a while they come up with something I’ve never seen.
Usually it’s a novel that doesn’t involve any of his regular characters.
And then I know I’m in for a treat.

Summer Moonshine is no exception. It takes place at stately
Walsingford Hall, where cash-strapped Baronet Sir Buckstone Abbott has
been reduced to taking in boarders–excuse me, “paying guests”–and has
therefore devoted his life to two things: avoiding his guests, and
attempting to sell the Hall.

Ironically, the same event that consumed the Abbott fortune also prevents
him from selling the Hall. It seems that the old family home burned down
in Victorian times, and was rebuilt at great expense by Sir Buckstone’s
progenitor, who exercised all of his ingenuity and eccentricity. The
resulting pile is perhaps one of the ugliest homes in England, and to
date only one person has expressed interest. The wealthy,
many-times-married American woman, the Princess von und zu Dwornitzchek.
The princess’ step-son Tubby is one of the paying guests at the Hall,
where he has conceived a passion for Prudence Whittaker, Sir Buckstone’s
secretary. Meanwhile, Sir Buckstone’s daughter Jane is engaged to
gold-digger Adrian Peake (can you have a male gold-digger?) who is also
engaged to the princess. And then the princess’ estranged step-son,
Tubby’s older brother Joe the playwright meets and falls for Jane. Stir
in Lady Buckstone’s brother Sam from America, and things get predictably
silly.

You get the idea. It’s one of those books where I kept having to stop
and read passages to Jane.