The Clicking of Cuthbert

Our Introduction is actually several comments by author P. G. Wodehouse. He wrote:

This book marks an epoch in my literary career. It is written in blood. It is the outpouring of a soul as deeply seared by Fate’s unkindness as the fairway on the dog-leg hole of the second nine was ever seared by my iron. It is the work of a very nearly desperate man, an eighteen-handicap man who has got to look extremely slippy if he doesn’t want to find himself in the twenties again.

As a writer of light fiction, I have always till now been handicapped by the fact that my disposition was cheerful, my heart intact, and my life unsoured. Handicapped, I say, because the public likes to feel that a writer of farcical stories is piquantly miserable in his private life, and that, if he turns out anything amusing, he does it simply in order to obtain relief from the almost insupportable weight of an existence which he has long since realized to be a wash-out. Well, today I am just like that.

Two years ago, I admit, I was a shallow farceur. My work lacked depth. I wrote so flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly good time. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears and laugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head up and feel that I am entitled to respect.

If you find anything in this volume that amuses you, kindly bear in mind that it was probably written on my return home after losing three balls in the gorse or breaking the head off a favorite driver. Thank you for your sympathy. It means more to me than I can say. Do you think that if I tried the square stance for a bit … But, after all, this cannot interest you. Leave me to my misery as you listen. It won’t be surprising if you notice a few changes in the grand old game.