  I am greatly indebted to the Wodehouse readers from the BLANDINGS e-mail group who did such detailed research on this text, not only on simple typos but on the differences between the 1916 Saturday Evening Post serialization and the US and UK early printings. I have made use, in this new PG edition, of the 1918 UK first edition references provided by these helpful savants, to correct misprints or other publisher's errors in the US edition, but I have otherwise followed the US edition. The punctuation is somewhat different from the UK versions, notably in its use of colons. The words "Uncle" and "Aunt", where used with a name ("Uncle Peter", "Aunt Nesta"), were capitalized in the original serialized and UK editions, but lower-cased in the US edition, so I have retained the lower-case. I have also restored some italics omitted in the previous PG edition. I note below some significant differences between the early printings: Chapter II: ""Well played, sir!" when they meant "'at-a-boy!"" "mean" is in the US edition; other editions have "meant". Chapter VI: "Regent's bill-of-fare" has been corrected from "Regent's bill-of-fair" in the US edition. "pull some boner" has been corrected from "pull some bone" in the US edition. Chapter VIII: "Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. It was a perfectly astounding likeness, but it was apparent to him when what he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him." This is a somewhat clumsy construction, and quite un-Wodehousian. The original passage in the serialization read: "Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. All that he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him." ———————————————— |
|
