Should Wodehouse Worlds Meet

I have just been reading "Uncle Fred in the springtime" . (I've posted a review, so check my profile page if you'd like to see it.) It made me wonder whether mixing characters from two series works. In this story Lord Ickenham, the young in spirit uncle of Pongo Twistleton visits Blandings Castle in disguise. I loved the book but did find the mix a bit rich. Has anyone come across this before in the Wodehouse canon? Do Bertie and Jeeves ever visit Blandings and does it work? I would love to know what other group members think.

There's a similar crossover to that in Uncle Fred in the Springtime in Leave it to Psmith. And Monty Bodkin starts life in a Blandings story and then appears as central character in a couple of novels of his own. I think there was a tantalising suggestion in one of the notebooks reproduced in Sunset at Blandings that Jeeves and Bertie might be brought to the Castle, but it never happened.

Minor characters often cross over between series if Wodehouse happens to need them (e.g. Sir Roderick Glossop), but I think he was pretty cautious about mixing his major characters. Bringing Jeeves and Bertie into a story without Bertie’s first-person narrative would risk falling very flat, and the “tall story” convention of the Mulliner and golf stories was probably also something that couldn't easily mix with the normal romantic comedy mode of the Blandings and non-series books.

Seems to me that there is a connection between the Threepwoods and the Blandings bunch. Would have to check this, and of-course, would always defer to Thorold in these matters, but my general sense is that by the time he finished, PGW had created a world with at-least as many connections of the world of Arthurian romance, though for rather different reasons. Cheers to all, -- Goddard

>3 HarryMacDonald:
The Threepwoods ARE the Blandings bunch, Goddard!
Without looking it up, I think it was that Lady Ickenham was a friend of one of Lord Emsworth's many sisters (Connie?), but Uncle Fred wasn't known personally to anyone at Blandings. Hence he is able to go there pretending to be Glossop without being exposed as an impostor from the start.

Misere, thorold. As I wind-up my seventh decade on this particular planet, I am lucky to remember that Goddard is one of the Graveses. Thanks for the gentle correction, even if Harriet Marwood would have resorted to (ahem) stern measures.