3* for this edition, 4* for the book itself (see below for details)

I was surprised and pleased to find that this early novel of Wodehouse's introduces not only Soapy & Dolly Molloy and their sometime colleague Chimp Twist (whose antics enlivened the later book "Money for Nothing" that I read last month) but also Lord Tilbury of the Mammoth Publishing Co.! The eponymous Sam is an American who went to Wrykyn (familiar to those who have read Wodehouse's 'School' books) and is back in England now as a young man.

I might have given this a better rating if this Internet Archive ebook edition hadn't contained so many errors (I hesitate to call them typos when they are clearly the result of a poor combination of scanning and importing into both ePub and Kindle formats). If you want to read this book, you are better off using the link given to stream it directly from Internet Archives (which is what I ended up doing). ( )

hardback

“Sam the Sudden” has plenty of humour and a good plot. Certain elements could be considered too coincidental, but as this is Wodehouse’s world, it’s no real issue.

Complications, misunderstanding, mistaken identities, and love matches that don’t run smoothly are all here in good working order. ( )

3* for this edition, 4* for the book itself (see below for details)

I was surprised and pleased to find that this early novel of Wodehouse's introduces not only Soapy & Dolly Molloy and their sometime colleague Chimp Twist (whose antics enlivened the later book "Money for Nothing" that I read last month) but also Lord Tilbury of the Mammoth Publishing Co.! The eponymous Sam is an American who went to Wrykyn (familiar to those who have read Wodehouse's 'School' books) and is back in England now as a young man.

I might have given this a better rating if this Internet Archive ebook edition hadn't contained so many errors (I hesitate to call them typos when they are clearly the result of a poor combination of scanning and importing into both ePub and Kindle formats). If you want to read this book, you are better off using the link given to stream it directly from Internet Archives (which is what I ended up doing). ( )

This rereading of my extensive Wodehouse collection is throwing up unexpected and unsettling results. I had always considered Sam the Sudden one of my absolute favourites but it seems my taste has altered over time. This is a gentle, amusing and rather sweet read, which ramps up to at least four stars over the last couple of chapters, but I need a bit more vim and vinegar in my P. G. nowadays, it seems, preferring those chock-full of snappy one-liners and with plots as tight as a kettle drum.

It makes me a little sad. Perhaps I'm less of an uncomplicated romantic than I was in my younger days. A part of me mourns the passing of that innocent state.

The fact that I had very high expectations of this and the last "all-time favourite" Wodehouse I read, and by which I was disappointed (Uneasy Money), may also have played a part.

Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, I find myself crying softly to myself, in the words of Lord Peter quoting from Death's Jest-Book, or The Fool's Tragedy in Strong Poison: "Oh, I am changing, changing, fearfully changing." (How's that for multiple book name-dropping!) ( )