Tales of St. Austin's

First edition

Tales of St. Austin's is a collection of short stories and essays, all with a school theme, by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published on 10 November 1903^[1] by Adam & Charles Black, London, all except one item having previously appeared in the schoolboy magazines, The Captain and Public School Magazine.

The stories are set in the fictional public school of St. Austin's, which was also the setting for The Pothunters (1902); they revolve around cricket, rugby, petty gambling and other boyish escapades.

Contents

Stories

• "How Pillingshot Scored"
  • The Captain, May 1903
• "The Odd Trick"
  • The Captain, August 1902
• "L'Affaire Uncle John (A Story in Letters)"
  • Public School Magazine, August 1901
• "Harrison's Slight Error"
  • The Captain, January 1903
• "Bradshaw's Little Story"
  • The Captain, July 1902
• "A Shocking Affair"
  • (previously unpublished, would later appear in Puffin Post, Q2, 1973)
• "The Babe and the Dragon"
  • The Captain, February 1902
• "The Manoeuvres of Charteris"
  • The Captain, August & September 1903
• "How Payne Bucked Up"
  • The Captain, October 1902
• "Author!"
  • Public School Magazine, October 1901
• "The Tabby Terror"
  • Public School Magazine, February 1902
• "The Prize Poem"
  • Public School Magazine, July 1901

Essays

• "Work"
  • Public School Magazine, December 1900
• "Notes"
  • Public School Magazine, February 1901
• "Now Talking About Cricket"
  • Public School Magazine, July 1901
• "The Tom Brown Question"
  • Public School Magazine, December 1901

Several of the stories were eventually published in the US in the collections The Swoop! and Other Stories (1979) and The Eighteen-Carat Kid and Other Stories (1980); others, along with many school stories never published in book form in Wodehouse's lifetime, were collected in Tales of Wrykyn and Elsewhere (1997).

References and sources

References

1. McIlvaine, E., Sherby, L.S. and Heineman, J.H. (1990) P.G. Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist. New York: James H. Heineman, p. 12. ISBN 087008125X

Sources

• Midkiff, Neil. "The Wodehouse short stories". "Neil Midkiff's P. G. Wodehouse pages". Retrieved 2006-04-24.

External links

• The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with photos of book covers and list of characters.
• Fantastic Fiction's page, with details of published editions, photos of book covers and links to used copies
• Tales of St. Austin's at Project Gutenberg