The Luck of the Bodkins

The Luck of the Bodkins is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 11 October 1935 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on January 3, 1936 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston. The two editions are significantly different, though the plot remains the same. The novel was serialised in Passing Show magazine (UK) from 21 September to 23 November 1935, and this version was published as the UK edition. For its US magazine appearance, in the Red Book, between August 1935 and January 1936, Wodehouse re-wrote the story, reducing its length, and this became the US book edition.

The story concerns the complicated love life of amiable young Drone Monty Bodkin, the nephew of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who had previously appeared in Heavy Weather (1933), when he was employed as the latest in the long line of Lord Emsworth's secretaries.

The plot of The Luck of the Bodkins continues into Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (1972), in which Monty, the object of his affections, hockey-playing Gertrude Butterwick, and movie-mogul Ivor Llewellyn all return.