The Amazing Hat Mystery

"The Amazing Hat Mystery"
Author P. G. Wodehouse
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Drones Club
Genre(s) Comedy
Publisher Cosmopolitan
Media type Print (Magazine)
Publication date August 1933

"The Amazing Hat Mystery" is a short story by English humorist P. G. Wodehouse. The story is part of the Drones Club canon. It was published in the US in Cosmopolitan in August 1933, and in The Strand Magazine in the UK in June 1934.[1] The story was included in the 1936 collection Young Men in Spats.[2]

The story features two Drones Club members, Percy Wimbolt and Nelson Cork, who are in love with girls named Elizabeth and Diana respectively. To impress the girls, Percy and Nelson each buy a new top hat from a prestigious hatter renowned for always making hats that fit. A mystery arises involving the two girls and the hats that baffles other club members.

Plot

A Bean (a nondescript Drones Club member) is recuperating from an injury in a nursing home. He is playing halma with a nurse when a Crumpet comes to visit and says that everyone is trying figure out "the great Hat mystery" involving Percy Wimbolt and Nelson Cork. The Crumpet explains by recounting the following story.

Percy, who is large, and Nelson, who is small, each want to buy a bespoke top hat from Bodmin, a hatter renowned for always making hats that fit. The two Drones meet at Bodmin's door. Percy is in love with a petite girl named Elizabeth Bottsworth, and wants a new top hat to impress her. Similarly, Nelson wants a new top hat to impress a tall girl named Diana Punter.

"Are you endeavouring to intimate that this hat does not fit?"
"Can't you feel that it doesn't fit?"
"But it's a Bodmin."
"I don't know what you mean. It's just an ordinary silk hat."
"Not at all. It's a Bodmin."

— Nelson asserts that Diana is wrong about his hat[3]

At home a few days later, Percy sees Bodmin's delivery boy and another boy playing with hats from the delivery boy's boxes. Percy shouts at them, and the boys run off, leaving a hat-box on Percy's steps. Percy takes the hat and goes to see Elizabeth. She claims his hat is too small, but Percy has faith in Bodmin's hats and is certain she is wrong. Appalled by her criticism of Bodmin's hat, Percy leaves. Elsewhere, Diana says Nelson's hat is too large. Nelson thinks it is impossible for any hat from Bodmin not to fit and questions Diana's eyesight. They argue, and Nelson bitterly goes to the Drones Club, where he finds Percy. They agree that girls do not understand hats, though Nelson tries to defend Elizabeth, whom he has always admired, and Percy defends Diana, whom he has always thought highly of. They leave the club, each taking his hat from the cloak-room.

Nelson tries talking with Elizabeth to help her reconcile with Percy, but he becomes romantically interested in her. She praises his hat, which she says fits him well. The same occurs with Percy and Diana. Eventually, Elizabeth becomes engaged to Nelson, and Diana gets engaged to Percy. The Crumpet and Bean are happy for the couples but cannot understand why Elizabeth and Diana perceived Percy and Nelson's hats differently. The Bean's nurse suggests that the delivery boy got the hats mixed, and then each man got the correct hat from the club cloak-room; the Crumpet finds this idea ingenious but unlikely, and instead believes it was somehow due to the incomprehensible Fourth Dimension, which the Bean agrees with.

Style

Wodehouse uses exaggerated imagery in similes and metaphors for comic effect. For example, the Crumpet states the following in the story: "Talking to Elizabeth Bottsworth had always been like bellowing down a well in the hope of attracting the attention of one of the lesser infusoria at the bottom".[4]

In Wodehouse's stories, syntactic and lexical ambiguities often result in misunderstandings between characters that lead to comic interactions. This occurs in "The Amazing Hat Mystery", when Percy interprets Nelson's use of the word "abroad" as meaning "in foreign parts", rather than "in the land":

"There is lawlessness and licence abroad."
"And here in England too."
"Well, naturally, you silly ass," said Nelson, with some asperity. "When I said abroad, I didn't mean abroad, I meant abroad".[5]

Background

Along with the other Drones Club story "Uncle Fred Flits By", this story was based on ideas given to Wodehouse by his friend Bill Townend.[6]

Unlike most of the protagonists of Wodehouse's Drones Club short stories, neither Percy Wimbolt nor Nelson Cork appear in any other stories. Nelson Cork is mentioned in one other story, the Drones Club short story "The Fat of the Land" (1958), and a club member with a name similar to Percy Wimbolt, Percy Wimbush, is also mentioned in that story.[7]

Publication history

The story was illustrated by Mario Cooper in Cosmopolitan.[8] It was illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson in the Strand.[9]

"The Amazing Hat Mystery" was included in the collection The Most of P. G. Wodehouse, which was published in the US on 15 October 1960, Wodehouse's seventy-ninth birthday.[10] It was included in the 1978 collection Vintage Wodehouse, a collection edited by Richard Usborne.[11] The 1982 collection Tales from the Drones Club featured the story.[12] It was included in P. G. Wodehouse Short Stories, a 1983 collection published by The Folio Society that included drawings by George Adamson.[13]

The story was featured in the 1939 anthology Jackdaw's Nest: A Fivefold Anthology, edited by Gerald William Bullett.[14]

Adaptations

Richard Usborne adapted the story into a radio drama, which was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on 25 April 1962. Produced by Rayner Heppenstall, "The Amazing Hat Mystery" featured Hugh Burden as the Crumpet, Garard Green as th Bean, Gudrun Ure as the nurse, Ronald Baddiley as Percy Wimbolt, David Enders as Nelson Cork, Denise Bryer as Elizabeth Bottsworth, and Mary Wimbush as Diana Punter.[15]

See also

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Midkiff, Neil (7 December 2017). "The Wodehouse short stories". Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  2. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 70-71, section A55.
  3. ↑ Wodehouse (2009) [1936], chapter 4, p. 93.
  4. ↑ Hall (1974), pp. 106–107.
  5. ↑ Hall (1974), pp. 87–88.
  6. ↑ Usborne, Richard (2013). Plum Sauce: A P. G. Wodehouse Companion. New York: The Overlook Press. p. 171. ISBN 1-58567-441-9.
  7. ↑ Hodson, Mark (11 November 2002). "Young Men in Spats: Literary and Cultural References". Madame Eulalie. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  8. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 148, subsection D17.54.
  9. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 186, subsection D133.194.
  10. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 120-121, section B12.
  11. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 124, section B19.
  12. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 126, section B25.
  13. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 129, section B32.
  14. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 194, section E26.
  15. ↑ "The Amazing Hat Mystery". BBC Genome Project. BBC. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
Bibliography
  • Hall, Robert A., Jr. (1974). The Comic Style of P. G. Wodehouse. Hamden: Archon Books. ISBN 0-208-01409-8.
  • McIlvaine, Eileen; Sherby, Louise S.; Heineman, James H. (1990). P. G. Wodehouse: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Checklist. New York: James H. Heineman Inc. ISBN 978-0-87008-125-5.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (2009) [1936]. Young Men in Spats (Reprinted ed.). London: Arrow Books. ISBN 9780099514039.
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