The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

Nineteen short stories collected in 1914 show P. G. Wodehouse warming up the comic machinery he would later run for decades. Written before Jeeves and Blandings took over his career, these tales follow struggling composers, boxing enthusiasts, shop girls, and lovestruck young men through the small crises of courtship and ambition. The title story pairs a prickly music teacher with the mysterious neighbour in the flat above hers, while others range from prizefights to office romances. The plots are light and the endings kind, but the sentences already sparkle with the timing and cheerful absurdity that made Wodehouse a household name. It is an easy, good-natured book to dip into between heavier reading, and a fine place to meet him before the famous butler arrives. Offered here as a free PDF and EPUB.