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Blandings - the logo of www.blandings.org.uk, the Companion to the works of P G Wodehouse

The Small Bachelor

A novel

George Finch is a wealthy bachelor living in the Bohemian quarter of New York, trying to become a painter. When he falls in love with Molly at first sight, his friend J. Hamilton Beamish, author of The Marriage Sane, does not approve. He is not the only one; Molly's step-mother is none too happy at the prospect of an artist for a son-in-law.

Add a girl from George's past, a millionaire who wants to be a cowboy, a valet with a criminal record (and engaged to a pick-pocket) plus a policeman who wants to be a poet, and J. Hamilton has his work cut out trying to engineer happy endings for all.

Publishing Information

UK:1927 Methuen & Co
1987 Penguin (used here)
US:1927 George H. Doran

Previously published in Liberty magazine (US) from 18 September to 25 December 1926.
Also published in the New magazine (UK), November 1926 to May 1927.

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This novel is based on the musical Oh, Lady! Lady!! by PG and Guy Bolton although only the last part of the play is used and many of the characters are different and some are new and ... forget its origins and read it as a novel; this is a good 'un.

In case you were wondering, the 'Small Bachelor' is George, so called because he is small, a bachelor and lives in a small, bachelor's apartment. During the writing of Oh, Lady! Lady!, around 1917, PG lived in an apartment on the 22nd floor of an office building on E41st Street.