Psmith, Journalist
Encyclopedia
Psmith, Journalist is a novel
by P.G. Wodehouse, first released in the United Kingdom
as a serial
in The Captain
magazine
between October 1909 and February 1910, and published in book form in the UK on September 29, 1915, by Adam & Charles Black
, London
, and, from imported sheets, by Macmillan
, New York
, later that year.
The story was also incorporated into the US version of The Prince and Betty
, published by W.J.Watt and Co., New York, on February 14, 1912. This combined the magazine versions of The Prince and Betty and Psmith, Journalist, and is a very different book from that published as The Prince and Betty in the UK.
It continues the adventures of the silver-tongued Psmith
, one of Wodehouse's best loved characters, and his friend Mike Jackson.
student Mike to New York
on a cricket
ing tour. Through high spirits and force of personality, Psmith takes charge of a minor periodical
, and becomes imbroiled in a scandal involving slum landlords, boxers
and gangster
s - the story displays a strong social conscience, rare in Wodehouse's generally light-hearted works.
Psmith
, accompanying his friend Mike on a cricket
ing tour, is complaining that he finds New York a little dull, especially with his companion frequently called on for cricketing duties. They meet Billy Windsor, dining in the same restaurant, when the cat escapes its basket, and Psmith helps soothe an irate waiter. Invited back to his place, there they meet and befriend Bat Jarvis, come to retrieve his cat. Perusing Cosy Moments, Psmith tells Windsor they must sack the current writers and rebuild the paper in a more exciting style, and volunteers to act as unpaid subeditor.
Wandering lost, Mike and Psmith find themselves in "Pleasant Street", a slum
neighbourhood. Upset by the poverty they see, Psmith resolves to dedicate the energies of Cosy Moments to the issue. Next day, Mike heads off to Philadelphia, and Psmith arrives at the offices to find them besieged by angry contributors, whom he soothes and takes out to lunch. Returning, he sees Kid Brady, who has been complaining to Windsor that he cannot get a fair chance in the crooked world of New York boxing
; they resolve to make the magazine his manager, and use it to boost his career.
They begin work, attacking the owner of the tenements and pushing Kid Brady, amongst other stirring pieces, and are soon visited by a Mr Francis Parker, a well-dressed representative of the tenement owner, who offers them bribes to stop the articles. That night, they are approached by an associate of Bat Jarvis, who tells them a large price is being offered to get rid of the duo, which Jarvis, grateful to them for returning his cat, has turned down. On their way home they are dogged by suspicious types.
Kid Brady, his career now on the up thanks to the paper, has his first big fight and wins handsomely. After the fight, the Cosy Moments boys hire Brady as "fighting editor", to protect them. He is needed soon after, when, in an alley outside the stadium, they are set upon by a gang of thugs. They chase them off, capturing one, a man named Jack Repetto, who reveals he is a member of Spider Reilly's "Three Points" gang. His comrades begin shooting, ruining Psmith's hat, but flee when the police arrive.
Finding the paper's distribution hit by thugs, Psmith realises they must up their game, and plans to use the tenement's rent-collector to track the owner. Pugsy Maloney tells them about an incident at "Shamrock Hall", neutral ground under protection of Bat Jarvis, where Dude Dawson insulted a prominent member of the Three Points' girl and used a crude racial epithet, after which Spider Reilly shot Dawson in the leg. The resulting inter-gang warfare leaves Cosy Moments unpestered for a time, and Psmith and Windsor head off to await the rent-collector in one of the tenement apartments.
The man, named Gooch, arrives, and they are trying to shake his employer's name out of him when Maloney reports the arrival of Spider Reilly, Repetto and other gang members. Sending Reilly to fetch Dude Dawson, Psmith and Windsor repair through a hatch to the roof with the rent-collector, holding out there until gang warfare draws their attackers away. They leave a man guarding the skylight, but Psmith finds a ladder, and they cross it to the next building and escape.
Windsor got the rent-collector to divulge a name, that of Stewart Waring, a candidate for City Alderman
and former Commissioner
of Buildings. After a pick-pocket nearly makes off with their signed proof of Waring's involvement, Psmith posts it back to the paper. Next day at the office, Brady is forced to leave their service to begin training for a fight, and Psmith hears that Windsor has been arrested for hitting a policeman, who was trying to arrest him as part of a raid on a gambling
den. Psmith relates a similar experience, and they realise the gang has used the police to get them out of the way while they search for the paper.
With Brady away training and Windsor in prison for a month, Psmith decides it is time to call in a favour from Bat Jarvis. He takes Mike, returned from his match, to visit the cat-lover. Pretending Mike is an English cat expert, they win Jarvis round, and he and his henchman Long Otto stand guard on the office the following day. Repetto and two other Three Pointers burst in, and are chased off with a warning from Jarvis to leave Cosy Moments alone.
Later, Francis Parker appears again, and persuades Psmith to send Jarvis away so they can talk; a message arrives from Windsor asking Psmith to come help him, and Psmith jumps into a taxi, only to find himself kidnapped at gunpoint by Parker. They drive out into the country, but get a flat tyre; while it is being fixed, Kid Brady comes along, out jogging, and distracts Parker long enough for Psmith to overpower him and escape. Next day, Paker invites Psmith to a meeting with Waring, but Psmith refuses, insisting the great man come to him. He also receives a telegram from Wilberfloss the editor, saying he will return the following day.
Wilberfloss arrives with the old contributors, enraged at the changes in the paper; he threatens to contact the owner, but Psmith reveals that he himself owns the paper, having bought it a month previously. Waring appears, and threatens Psmith, but is forced to give him $5,000 to improve the tenements, plus three to replace his hat; Psmith restores Wilberfloss and the staff of Cosy Moments to their positions, Billy Windsor having been offered his previous job at a paper back at a fine salary.
Some months later, back in rainy Cambridge
, Psmith hears that Waring lost his election, and that Kid Brady has won his chance at a title-fight, while Mr Wilberfloss has regained the paper's old subscribers.
The staff of Cosy Moments:
Psmith becomes Rupert Smith, a Harvard
alumnus (Psmith's first name is Rupert in Mike and Psmith in the City; it is not mentioned in Psmith, Journalist, and has changed to Ronald for his next appearance), although he retains Psmith's characteristic monocle, mode of speech and habit of referring to all and sundry as "Comrade". Smith is acting editor of the magazine, here renamed Peaceful Moments, edited by a Mr Renshaw and owned by Mr Benjamin Scobell. John Maude is an old friend of Smith; the paper hires Betty as secretary, and their love-hate relationship carries on from the first part of the story. The affairs of boxer Kid Brady, boosted by Smith, gangster Bat Jarvis, befriended by Betty, and the tenement scandal, taken up by Smith at Betty's instigation, are intermingled with the romance of Maude and Betty.
The two books were combined and rewritten once more, and released as a serial under the title A Prince for Hire in a periodical called The Illustrated Love Magazine in 1931. The parts were reassembled and published in book form by Galahad Books in 2003.
and returned in:
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by P.G. Wodehouse, first released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as a serial
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
in The Captain
The Captain (1900s magazine)
The Captain was a magazine for young boys, published monthly in the United Kingdom from 1899 to 1924.It is perhaps best known for printing many of P. G. Wodehouse's early school stories, such as many of those featured in the collection Tales of St. Austin's...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
between October 1909 and February 1910, and published in book form in the UK on September 29, 1915, by Adam & Charles Black
A & C Black
A & C Black is a British book publishing company.The firm was founded in 1807 by Adam and Charles Black in Edinburgh, and moved to the Soho district of London in 1889. In 1851, the firm bought the copyright of Walter Scott's Waverley Novels for £27,000. In 1902 it published P. G...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and, from imported sheets, by Macmillan
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, later that year.
The story was also incorporated into the US version of The Prince and Betty
The Prince and Betty
The Prince and Betty is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. It was originally published in Ainslee's Magazine in the United States in January 1912, and, in a slightly different form, as a serial in Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom between February and April 1912, before being published in book form,...
, published by W.J.Watt and Co., New York, on February 14, 1912. This combined the magazine versions of The Prince and Betty and Psmith, Journalist, and is a very different book from that published as The Prince and Betty in the UK.
It continues the adventures of the silver-tongued Psmith
Psmith
Rupert Psmith is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British comic writer P. G...
, one of Wodehouse's best loved characters, and his friend Mike Jackson.
Plot introduction
The story begins with Psmith accompanying his fellow CambridgeUniversity of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
student Mike to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on a cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
ing tour. Through high spirits and force of personality, Psmith takes charge of a minor periodical
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
, and becomes imbroiled in a scandal involving slum landlords, boxers
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
s - the story displays a strong social conscience, rare in Wodehouse's generally light-hearted works.
Plot summary
Mr Wilberfloss, editor of Cosy Moments magazine, is forced by ill-health to go away to the mountains for ten weeks of rest, leaving his subordinate Billy Windsor in charge. Pugsy Maloney, the office boy, brings in a cat he has rescued from some ruffians in the street, which he says belongs to his cousin, gang leader Bat Jarvis.Psmith
Psmith
Rupert Psmith is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British comic writer P. G...
, accompanying his friend Mike on a cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
ing tour, is complaining that he finds New York a little dull, especially with his companion frequently called on for cricketing duties. They meet Billy Windsor, dining in the same restaurant, when the cat escapes its basket, and Psmith helps soothe an irate waiter. Invited back to his place, there they meet and befriend Bat Jarvis, come to retrieve his cat. Perusing Cosy Moments, Psmith tells Windsor they must sack the current writers and rebuild the paper in a more exciting style, and volunteers to act as unpaid subeditor.
Wandering lost, Mike and Psmith find themselves in "Pleasant Street", a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
neighbourhood. Upset by the poverty they see, Psmith resolves to dedicate the energies of Cosy Moments to the issue. Next day, Mike heads off to Philadelphia, and Psmith arrives at the offices to find them besieged by angry contributors, whom he soothes and takes out to lunch. Returning, he sees Kid Brady, who has been complaining to Windsor that he cannot get a fair chance in the crooked world of New York boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
; they resolve to make the magazine his manager, and use it to boost his career.
They begin work, attacking the owner of the tenements and pushing Kid Brady, amongst other stirring pieces, and are soon visited by a Mr Francis Parker, a well-dressed representative of the tenement owner, who offers them bribes to stop the articles. That night, they are approached by an associate of Bat Jarvis, who tells them a large price is being offered to get rid of the duo, which Jarvis, grateful to them for returning his cat, has turned down. On their way home they are dogged by suspicious types.
Kid Brady, his career now on the up thanks to the paper, has his first big fight and wins handsomely. After the fight, the Cosy Moments boys hire Brady as "fighting editor", to protect them. He is needed soon after, when, in an alley outside the stadium, they are set upon by a gang of thugs. They chase them off, capturing one, a man named Jack Repetto, who reveals he is a member of Spider Reilly's "Three Points" gang. His comrades begin shooting, ruining Psmith's hat, but flee when the police arrive.
Finding the paper's distribution hit by thugs, Psmith realises they must up their game, and plans to use the tenement's rent-collector to track the owner. Pugsy Maloney tells them about an incident at "Shamrock Hall", neutral ground under protection of Bat Jarvis, where Dude Dawson insulted a prominent member of the Three Points' girl and used a crude racial epithet, after which Spider Reilly shot Dawson in the leg. The resulting inter-gang warfare leaves Cosy Moments unpestered for a time, and Psmith and Windsor head off to await the rent-collector in one of the tenement apartments.
The man, named Gooch, arrives, and they are trying to shake his employer's name out of him when Maloney reports the arrival of Spider Reilly, Repetto and other gang members. Sending Reilly to fetch Dude Dawson, Psmith and Windsor repair through a hatch to the roof with the rent-collector, holding out there until gang warfare draws their attackers away. They leave a man guarding the skylight, but Psmith finds a ladder, and they cross it to the next building and escape.
Windsor got the rent-collector to divulge a name, that of Stewart Waring, a candidate for City Alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
and former Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner is in principle the title given to a member of a commission or to an individual who has been given a commission ....
of Buildings. After a pick-pocket nearly makes off with their signed proof of Waring's involvement, Psmith posts it back to the paper. Next day at the office, Brady is forced to leave their service to begin training for a fight, and Psmith hears that Windsor has been arrested for hitting a policeman, who was trying to arrest him as part of a raid on a gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
den. Psmith relates a similar experience, and they realise the gang has used the police to get them out of the way while they search for the paper.
With Brady away training and Windsor in prison for a month, Psmith decides it is time to call in a favour from Bat Jarvis. He takes Mike, returned from his match, to visit the cat-lover. Pretending Mike is an English cat expert, they win Jarvis round, and he and his henchman Long Otto stand guard on the office the following day. Repetto and two other Three Pointers burst in, and are chased off with a warning from Jarvis to leave Cosy Moments alone.
Later, Francis Parker appears again, and persuades Psmith to send Jarvis away so they can talk; a message arrives from Windsor asking Psmith to come help him, and Psmith jumps into a taxi, only to find himself kidnapped at gunpoint by Parker. They drive out into the country, but get a flat tyre; while it is being fixed, Kid Brady comes along, out jogging, and distracts Parker long enough for Psmith to overpower him and escape. Next day, Paker invites Psmith to a meeting with Waring, but Psmith refuses, insisting the great man come to him. He also receives a telegram from Wilberfloss the editor, saying he will return the following day.
Wilberfloss arrives with the old contributors, enraged at the changes in the paper; he threatens to contact the owner, but Psmith reveals that he himself owns the paper, having bought it a month previously. Waring appears, and threatens Psmith, but is forced to give him $5,000 to improve the tenements, plus three to replace his hat; Psmith restores Wilberfloss and the staff of Cosy Moments to their positions, Billy Windsor having been offered his previous job at a paper back at a fine salary.
Some months later, back in rainy Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Psmith hears that Waring lost his election, and that Kid Brady has won his chance at a title-fight, while Mr Wilberfloss has regained the paper's old subscribers.
Characters in "Psmith, Journalist"
- PsmithPsmithRupert Psmith is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British comic writer P. G...
, an eccentric English dandy, on vacation from University- Mike Jackson, his close friend, a cricketer on tour
- Bat Jarvis, the cat-loving leader of the "Groome Street" gang
- Long Otto, one of Jarvis' henchmen, a stringy, silent young man
- Spider Reilly, another gang boss, head of the "Three Points" gang
- Jack Repetto, a thug in Reilly's gang, with hair like Bat Jarvis
- Dude Dawson, head of the "Table Hill" gang, Reilly's main rival
- Mr Gooch, a well-dressed rent-collector of Pleasant Street
- Stewart Waring, Gooch's employer, a crooked politician and tenement-owner
- Francis Parker, a well-dressed but sinister crook in a tall-shaped hat
- Stewart Waring, Gooch's employer, a crooked politician and tenement-owner
- Kid Brady, a promising light-weight boxer, from Wyoming
- Jimmy Garvin, boxing champ who the Kid hopes to face someday
- "Cyclone" Al. Wolmann, a long-armed boxer who takes on the Kid
The staff of Cosy Moments:
- Mr J. Fillken Wilberfloss, editor and guiding spirit of Cosy Moments
- Billy Windsor, sub-editor, who takes over in Wilberfloss' absence
- Mr. Benjamin White, owner of Cosy Moments, away in Europe for some time
- Pugsy Maloney, the office-boy at Cosy Moments, cousin to Bat Jarvis
- Mr Wheeler, the paper's business manager, who has never read an issue
- Luella Granville Waterman, writer of Moments in the Nursery
- Mr Waterman, her husband, a small round gentleman
- B. Henderson Asher, a man with a face like a walnut, who writes Moments of Mirth
- Reverend Edwin T. Philpotts, a cadaverous-looking man, who writes Moments of Meditation
Reworkings
The book published in the US in February 1912 under the title The Prince and Betty merges the plot of the version which had appeared a month earlier in Ainslee's magazine with the plot of Psmith, Journalist (which at that date had only appeared in The Captain magazine). The first eleven chapters of the book follow the plot of the magazine version, with John Maude and Betty Silver meeting and falling out in Mervo. From chapter twelve onwards the story mirrors Psmith, Journalist, with some changes.Psmith becomes Rupert Smith, a Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
alumnus (Psmith's first name is Rupert in Mike and Psmith in the City; it is not mentioned in Psmith, Journalist, and has changed to Ronald for his next appearance), although he retains Psmith's characteristic monocle, mode of speech and habit of referring to all and sundry as "Comrade". Smith is acting editor of the magazine, here renamed Peaceful Moments, edited by a Mr Renshaw and owned by Mr Benjamin Scobell. John Maude is an old friend of Smith; the paper hires Betty as secretary, and their love-hate relationship carries on from the first part of the story. The affairs of boxer Kid Brady, boosted by Smith, gangster Bat Jarvis, befriended by Betty, and the tenement scandal, taken up by Smith at Betty's instigation, are intermingled with the romance of Maude and Betty.
The two books were combined and rewritten once more, and released as a serial under the title A Prince for Hire in a periodical called The Illustrated Love Magazine in 1931. The parts were reassembled and published in book form by Galahad Books in 2003.
See also
Mike and Psmith had previously appeared in:- MikeMike (novel)Mike is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 15 September 1909 by Adam & Charles Black, London. The story first appeared in the magazine The Captain, in two separate parts, collected together in the original version of the book; the first part, originally called Jackson Junior, was...
(1909) - Psmith in the CityPsmith in the CityPsmith in the City is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 23 September 1910 by Adam & Charles Black, London. The story was originally released as a serial in The Captain magazine, between October 1908 and March 1909, under the title The New Fold.It continues the adventures of...
(1910)
and returned in:
- Leave it to PsmithLeave it to PsmithLeave it to Psmith is a comic novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on November 30, 1923 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on March 14, 1924 by George H. Doran, New York. It had previously been serialised, in the Saturday Evening Post in the U.S...
(1923).
External links
- The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with photos of book covers and a list of characters
- Fantastic Fiction's page, with details of published editions, photos of book covers and links to used copies
- Free eBook of Psmith, Journalist at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- Free eBook of The Prince and Betty (U.S. version) at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- The story of A Prince for Hire, in an article for The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...