{"id":5468,"date":"2013-09-03T23:49:05","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T03:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5468"},"modified":"2026-02-08T19:58:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T00:58:36","slug":"jill-the-reckless-by-pg-wodehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5468","title":{"rendered":"Jill the Reckless, by P.G. Wodehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished a free ebook version (functional formatting and scattered erroneous letters) of P.G. Wodehouse\u2019s trans-Atlantic rom-com Jill the Reckless<\/em><\/a>. It was published in 1921 in the United Kingdom after a couple serializations, under the name, The Little Warrior<\/em>, in American and Canadian magazines the year before. To cut to the chase, I enjoyed it overall, but I can\u2019t say I lapped it up.<\/p>\n

Jill, a delightful young lady with far more impetuous bravado than ladies usually indulge at her age, is the focus on Sir Derek Underhill\u2019s affections and anxiety. He loves her, but he\u2019s worried his mother will not accept her. Derek\u2019s close friend and life-long admirer, Freddie Rooke, understands the unyielding terror that Derek\u2019s mother is and hopes to rally round his friend to support him against this maternal fiend. No, it doesn\u2019t go well. Well is precisely how it doesn\u2019t go, but that isn\u2019t the event that turns Lady Underhill against Jill. That event occurs later that evening when a theatre burns to the ground and Jill, becoming separated from the Underhills, ends up dining with another man a couple tables away from her finance.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the first half of act one, so there\u2019s a lot more to love. In acts two and three, Wodehouse draws us into the world of musical theater, where most managers are human and no one expects to be treated fairly. Wodehouse worked in this world with some famous names, so I can\u2019t help thinking he is revealing some of his personal experiences. His description of the office boy species sounds informed by an explorer\u2019s chronicle.<\/p>\n

I say I didn\u2019t lap it all up, because this work doesn\u2019t carry the light-hearted air consistently throughout. At a couple points, it gets rather serious. I can\u2019t say I have any favorite scenes, though Bill the Parrot\u2019s Big Adventure comes to mind. Still it\u2019s as charming reading as I\u2019m sure Jill is herself. If you don\u2019t mind paying for it, I recommend the print version for ease of use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished a free ebook version (functional formatting and scattered erroneous letters) of P.G. Wodehouse\u2019s trans-Atlantic rom-com Jill the Reckless. It was published in 1921 in the United Kingdom after a couple serializations, under the name, The Little Warrior, in American and Canadian magazines the year before. To cut to the chase, I enjoyed … Continue reading Jill the Reckless, by P.G. Wodehouse<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5468"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21646,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions\/21646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}