The Small Bachelor

George Finch cannot paint to save his life, but he has money and a studio in Greenwich Village, and he has fallen hard for Molly Waddington. The trouble is Molly’s stepmother, a fierce social climber determined to marry the girl to a genuine English lord rather than a bashful dauber. Set in Prohibition-era New York, the story piles up misunderstandings, a crooked valet, a nervous policeman, and a wedding that refuses to happen on schedule. Wodehouse adapted it from his own stage musical, and the timing shows in the brisk scenes and snapping dialogue. It is farce at its sunniest, all engineered chaos and happy endings. Read it free as a PDF and EPUB edition.