Trouble Down at Tudsleigh

"Trouble Down at Tudsleigh"
Author P. G. Wodehouse
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Drones Club
Genre(s) Comedy
Publisher The Strand Magazine
Media type Print (Magazine)
Publication date May 1935

"Trouble Down at Tudsleigh" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. Part of the main Drones Club canon, the story was published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in May 1935, and in the US in Cosmopolitan in May 1939.[1] It was included in the British edition of the 1936 collection Young Men in Spats.[2]

In the story, Drones Club member Freddie Widgeon tries to impress a girl named April Carroway by talking about her favourite poet with her, but he is threatened by a jealous rival and encounters trouble involving April's impulsive kid sister.

Plot

At the Drones Club, a Crumpet tries to sell a book of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems, but nobody is interested. The book belongs to Freddie Widgeon, whom the Crumpet is trying to sell the book for. The other Drones are shocked that Freddie would buy such a book. Saying that Freddie bought it to impress a girl, the Crumpet narrates the following story.

"Read Tennyson? Me read Tennyson? Well, well, well! Bless my soul! Why, I know him by heart – some of him."
"So do I! 'Break, break, break, on your cold grey stones, oh Sea...'"
"Quite. Or take the 'Lady of Shalott'."
"'I hold it truth with him who sings...'"
"So do I, absolutely. And then, again, there's the 'Lady of Shalott'."

— Freddie and April discuss Tennyson's works[3]

Freddie goes to a town called Tudsleigh in Worcestershire to fish. He falls in love with April Carroway, the daughter of a family friend residing at Tudsleigh Court. April reads a book titled Collected Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson to her kid sister Prudence. Freddie acquires a copy. He meets Captain Bradbury, an intimidating man of the British Indian Army and a jealous rival for April's love. Freddie reads Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott", and impresses April by discussing the poet with her. She agrees to go rowing and then picnic with him. Bradbury threatens Freddie, but Freddie is undeterred.

Waiting in the boat the next day, Freddie sees Prudence, who tells him that April cannot come. April wants Freddie to take Prudence instead, and April will try to come later. Freddie and Prudence set off. Prudence feels that Tennyson's heroines are soppy, but Freddie disagrees and says she would do well to behave like any one of them. After lunch, Prudence mentions that she was expelled from school for playing William Tell and trying to shoot an apple off the head of a pig, and she had also set her dormitory on fire playing Florence Nightingale ("The Lady with the Lamp"). Freddie takes a nap, then finds Prudence gone. He thinks he sees her in the river so he swims in, but it is only her frock.

Looking for dry clothes, Freddie enters a nearby unoccupied house. He is changing when he sees Bradbury, clearly the owner of the house, coming to the front door. Alarmed, Freddie bolts the door shut. Bradbury glares at him through the window and goes around the house. Freddie exits through the front door, and realizes he has no trousers on. Driving off in Bradbury's car, Freddie covers his lap with a rug. He sees April Carroway, who found Prudence. Prudence stays in a bush since she lost some of her clothes in the river. Following Freddie's advice, she had tried to imitate Lady Godiva (as described in Tennyson's poem "Godiva"). April tells Freddie to let Prudence use the rug. Freddie remorsefully must refuse, and he drives off. To hide from Bradbury, he is now growing a beard. A letter from April has proven that the book of Tennyson's works is no longer of any use to him.

Background

Wodehouse's earlier story The Girl on the Boat (1922) features a character named Sam Marlowe who studies Tennyson's works to impress a girl. Wodehouse reused this plot point in "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh", in which Freddie Widgeon reads Tennyson's works to impress April.[4]

Publication history

"Trouble Down at Tudsleigh" was illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson in the Strand.[5] It was illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg in Cosmopolitan.[6]

The story was included in the American edition of Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets, published in 1940.[7] It was featured in the 1949 collection, The Best of Wodehouse, edited by Scott Meredith and published by Pocket Books.[8] The collection The Week-End Book of Humor, with stories selected by Wodehouse and Meredith, included the story, which was the only Wodehouse story featured in the book. This collection was published in 1952 in the US and 1954 in the UK, and was reissued with the alternate title P. G. Wodehouse Selects the Best of Humor in the US in 1965, and as P. G. Wodehouse Selects the Best of Humour in the UK in 1966.[9] The story was also included in the 1982 collection Tales from the Drones Club.[10]

Adaptations

The story was adapted for the second episode of the third series of Wodehouse Playhouse. The episode, "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh", was first broadcast on 7 November 1978, and featured John Alderton as Freddie Widgeon, Anna Fox as April Carroway, Tony Mathews as Captain Bradbury, and Bernadette Windsor as Prudence Carroway.[11]

See also

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Midkiff, Neil (7 December 2017). "The Wodehouse short stories". Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  2. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 70-71, A55.
  3. ↑ Wodehouse (2009) [1936], chapter 3, p. 64.
  4. ↑ Usborne, Richard (2013). Plum Sauce: A P. G. Wodehouse Companion. New York: The Overlook Press. p. 154. ISBN 1-58567-441-9.
  5. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 186, D133.199.
  6. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 149, D17.69.
  7. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 77-78, A62b.
  8. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 118, B8a.
  9. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 118-119, B10.
  10. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 126, B25a.
  11. ↑ Taves, Brian (2006). P. G. Wodehouse and Hollywood: Screenwriting, Satires and Adaptations. McFarland & Company. pp. 125 and 186. ISBN 978-0786422883.
Bibliography
  • 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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