The Code of the Woosters
A Jeeves & Wooster novel
The one with the cow-creamer.
Dark doings at Totleigh Towers, home of Sir Watkyn Bassett, silver collector and Justice of the Peace, where Bertie Wooster is asked to steal a silver cow-creamer, keep Madeline Bassett and Gussie Fink-Nottle engaged, help Gussie find a book and avoid getting beaten up by a would-be dictator, secure a vicarage for a curate and pinch a policeman's helmet. And they say country life is slow.
Publishing Information
| UK: | 1938 Herbert Jenkins
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| 1953 Penguin (used here)
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| US: | 1938 Doubleday, Doran
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| Canada: | 1938 McClelland & Stewart |
Previously published in the Saturday Evening Post (US) from 16 July to 3 September, 1938 and in the London Daily Mail from 14 September to 6 October 1938.
The Silver Cow
This title appears in the online catalogue of the A. P. Watts and Company (PG's agents) records. It is also cited by the US Supreme Court in terms which make it clear, beyond reasonable doubt, that it is
The Code of the Woosters (see text below). What is not clear is whether it was the title used by the Saturday Evening Post or an earlier working title that was discarded by the SEP before publication.
US Supreme Court. C.I.R. v WODEHOUSE, 337 U.S. 369 (1949). Extract:
February 22, 1938, the Curtis Publishing Company (here called Curtis) accepted for publication in the Saturday Evening Post the respondent's unpublished novel "The Silver Cow". . . . . The story was published serially in the Saturday Evening Post, July 9 to September 3, 1939.
The only problem is that the dates quoted for publication are wrong - they are Sundays not Saturdays. However, scroll back one year and they become Saturdays and match this book nicely. A single digit error in transcription can be allowed, I believe.
In his biography, Robert McCrum states that The Silver Cow was an early name for this book.
Regarded by many as PG's best work. There are other books that might compete for that honour but I'd hate to depend on the difference.
This volume follows on from Right Ho, Jeeves and while reading the Jeeves and Wooster tales in order helps avoid plot spoilers, it's not essential, certainly not with these two.