The Man with Two Left Feet

1922 edition

The Man With Two Left Feet, and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on March 8, 1917 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States in 1933 by A.L. Burt and Co., New York. All the stories had previously appeared in periodicals, usually the Strand in the UK and the Red Book magazine or the Saturday Evening Post in the US.

It is a fairly miscellaneous collection — most of the stories concern relationships, sports and household pets, and do not feature any of Wodehouse's regular characters; one, however, "Extricating Young Gussie", is notable for the first appearance in print of two of Wodehouse's best-known characters, Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster (although Bertie's surname isn't given and Jeeves's role is very small), and Bertie's fearsome Aunt Agatha.

Contents

• "Bill the Bloodhound"
  • US: Century, February 1915
  • UK: Strand, April 1915
• "Extricating Young Gussie"
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, September 18, 1915
  • UK: Strand, January 1916
• "Wilton's Holiday"
  • UK: Strand, July 1915
  • US: Illustrated Sunday Magazine, March 19, 1916 (as "Wilton's Vacation")
• "The Mixer: He Meets a Shy Gentleman"
  • UK: Strand, November 1915
  • US: Red Book, June 1916 (as "A Very Shy Gentleman")
• "The Mixer: He Moves in Society"
  • UK: Strand, December 1915
  • US: Red Book, July 1916 (as "Breaking into Society")
• "Crowned Heads"
  • US: Argosy, June 1914
  • UK: Pearson's, April 1915
• "At Geisenheimer's"
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, August 21, 1915
  • UK: Strand, October 1915 (as "The Love-r-ly Silver Cup")
• "The Making of Mac's"
  • UK: Strand, May 1915
  • US: Red Book, May 1916 (as "The Romance of "Mac's"")
• "One Touch of Nature"
  • US: McClure's, August 1914 (as "Brother Fans")
• "Black for Luck"
  • UK: Strand, June 1915
  • US: Red Book, July 1915 (as "A Black Cat For Luck")
• "The Romance of an Ugly Policeman"
  • UK: Strand, January 1915
  • US: Ainslee's, September 1926
• "A Sea of Troubles" ("A Sea of Trouble" in the US edition)
  • US: McClure's, September 1914
  • UK: Pearson's, June 1915
• "The Man With Two Left Feet"
  • US: Saturday Evening Post, March 18, 1916
  • UK: Strand, May 1916

In the U.S. version of the book, "Wilton's Holiday", "Crowned Heads" and the two-part "The Mixer" were omitted, and replaced with three other stories, "Absent Treatment", "Rallying Round Old George" and "Doing Clarence a Bit of Good", which all feature Reggie Pepper and had all appeared in the UK in My Man Jeeves (1919).

See also

• Categorised list of Wodehouse's short stories

References

• Midkiff, Neil. "The Wodehouse short stories". http://home.earthlink.net/~nmidkiff/pgw/story.html. Retrieved April 27, 2006. 

External links

• The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with numerous book covers and a list of characters
• Fantastic Fiction's page, with details of published editions, photos of book covers and links to used copies
• Free eBook of The Man With Two Left Feet at Project Gutenberg