8.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print (Hardcover) Country United Kingdom | 4.1/5 Goodreads Publication date 20 May 1948 Originally published 20 May 1948 Genre Humorous Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publishers Barrie & Jenkins, Doubleday Similar Works by P G Wodehouse, Humorous Fiction books, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spring Fever is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published on 20 May 1948, in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States by Doubleday and Co, New York. Although not featuring any of Wodehouse's regular characters, the cast contains a typical Wodehousean selection of English aristocrats, wealthy Americans, household staff and imposters.
Plot summary
Wealthy New York businessman G. Ellery Cobbold has sent his son Stanwood, a blundering ex-American football player, to London, to separate him from Hollywood starlet Eileen Stoker with whom he is in love. When Cobbold discovers that Stoker is also in London, making pictures, he insists that Stanwood goes to stay with a distant relation, curmudgeonly widower Lord Shortlands. But Stanwood stays put. Instead, good-looking movie agent Mike Cardinal goes to Shortlands' castle (Beevor, in Kent), posing as Stanwood. He is pursuing Shortlands' beautiful daughter Terry. But Terry is wary of him because he is too handsome.
Lord Shortlands himself is in love with his cook, Mrs Punter, and would like to marry her. Unfortunately she insists on £200 to buy a pub, which Shortlands doesn't have, the purse-strings at Beevor Castle being firmly in the control of his domineering elder daughter Adela. Also, he has a rival in suave butler Mervyn Spink. Things look up for "Shorty" when he discovers that a stamp in his collection is worth £1000. But Spink fools Adela into believing that the stamp is his, and it gets locked up in a safe. It so happens that Stanwood's butler, Augustus Robb is an ex-safe breaker, and Mike masterminds a burglary. This goes disastrously wrong, and Mike gets hit in the face with a bag of safe breaking tools. The up-side is that his battered face makes him suddenly attractive to Terry. So, after a final misunderstanding, things end happily for Mike and Terry. Stanwood and Eileen also get together. But Mrs Punter runs off with Augustus Robb, leaving Shorty and Spink ruing their loss.