Most of you know I hold P.G. Wodehouse in high regard. He is perhaps the greatest English comic novelist of the 20th century, and I never tire of rereading his classic Jeeves & Wooster novels. He had a gift for humorous prose that defies imitation.

And yet, you will notice I’ve never reviewed a book by him. Mostly, this is because the prospect of doing so is almost intimidating. What can I, a mere blogger, say about such a titan of literature? Better people than your humble reviewer have found themselves in awe of Wodehouse.

But, I’m going to review this short story because (a) despite being a Wodehouse fan since the age of 11, I hadn’t heard of it until last year, which means it’s pretty obscure and (b) because Wodehouse himself considered it one of the funniest things he had ever written. Which is really saying something, coming from the man who wrote Right Ho, Jeeves.

And finally, (c) it’s a bit offbeat by Wodehouse standards. You know me, I love anything that’s weird, different, out-of-the-ordinary, outré… you get the idea. And this book is certainly different than typical Wodehouse. For starters, it’s a ghost story!

Well, kind of. The protagonist is a novelist named James Rodman, who writes hardboiled thrillers. He is living at the home of his late aunt, Leila J. Pinckney, who wrote light romance novels. Rodman regards his aunt’s genre with contempt, considering it full of sappy clichés and cloying sentimentality.

But, in the cozy atmosphere of Honeysuckle Cottage, Rodman slowly begins to feel as if something is casting a spell over him. It starts with him writing a love interest into his latest novel; something which he abhors. And then, a young woman shows up on the doorstep, and he and she experience a “meet cute” right out of a Leila J. Pinckney novel!

As time goes by, Rodman starts saying and doing things that a Pinckney hero would do: picking flowers for the woman, and even reading her poetry. And here, I must quote verbatim:

“James had to read to her—and poetry, at that; and not the jolly, wholesome sort of poetry the boys are turning out nowadays, either—good, honest stuff about sin and gas-works and decaying corpses—but the old-fashioned kind with rhymes in it, dealing almost exclusively with love.”

I’m pretty sure that’s a T.S. Eliot reference. You love to see it.

Speaking of references, Wodehouse apparently intended the story as an homage to Henry James, who is mentioned briefly in the text, and whose brand of psychological mystery is very much in line with the kind of strange experience that Rodman finds himself undergoing.

So, what happens? Does Rodman succumb entirely to the mysterious power of Honeysuckle Cottage? Well, even though it’s almost a hundred years old, I can’t bring myself to spoil this one. The ending is simply too good; you have to read it for yourself. You can find it in the collection “Meet Mr. Mulliner,” which is in the public domain.