P. G. Wodehouse First Editions: Jenkins, Jeeves and the Jacket Problem

Most P. G. Wodehouse first editions are Herbert Jenkins books. Jenkins took on Piccadilly Jim in 1918 and published almost every Wodehouse title in Britain for fifty years in a house style that barely changed, so once you know how Jenkins marked a first impression you can read nearly the whole shelf. The catches are that Jenkins reprinted the popular titles for decades in the same jackets, that the early jackets have almost all perished, and that for several of the best books the American edition is the true first. This guide covers the school stories from A & C Black, the Jenkins years, the American side, the bibliography dealers cite and the traps.

We track the main books on their own pages, with printings and points recorded against each: The Inimitable Jeeves, Leave It to Psmith, Carry On, Jeeves, Very Good, Jeeves, Thank You, Jeeves, Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters and Joy in the Morning, with Summer Lightning, Heavy Weather and Uncle Fred in the Springtime for Blandings and Psmith in the City for the early years. See also the P. G. Wodehouse author page and the Herbert Jenkins publisher page.

The key books at a glance

Dates are from Terry Mordue's notes on the Madame Eulalie site and from Wikipedia, which agree on every title below.

Book	Year	UK publisher	US publisher	Which came first
The Pothunters	1902	A & C Black, 18 September	Macmillan, New York, from imported sheets	UK
Psmith in the City	1910	A & C Black, 23 September	Macmillan, from imported sheets, November	UK
Piccadilly Jim	1917/1918	Herbert Jenkins, May 1918	Dodd, Mead, 24 February 1917	US, by over a year
The Inimitable Jeeves	1923	Jenkins, 17 May	George H. Doran, as Jeeves, 28 September	UK
Leave It to Psmith	1923/1924	Jenkins, 30 November 1923	Doran, 14 March 1924	UK
Carry On, Jeeves	1925/1927	Jenkins, 9 October 1925	Doran, 7 October 1927	UK, by two years
Summer Lightning	1929	Jenkins, 19 July	Doubleday, Doran, as Fish Preferred, 1 July	US
Very Good, Jeeves	1930	Jenkins, 4 July	Doubleday, Doran, 20 June	US
Heavy Weather	1933	Jenkins, 10 August	Little, Brown, Boston, 28 July	US
Thank You, Jeeves	1934	Jenkins, 16 March	Little, Brown, 23 April	UK
Right Ho, Jeeves	1934	Jenkins, 5 October	Little, Brown, as Brinkley Manor, 15 October	UK, by ten days
The Code of the Woosters	1938	Jenkins, 7 October	Doubleday, Doran, 7 October	Same day
Uncle Fred in the Springtime	1939	Jenkins, 25 August	Doubleday, Doran, 18 August	US, by a week
Joy in the Morning	1946/1947	Jenkins, 2 June 1947	Doubleday, 22 August 1946	US, by nine months

Up to the mid-1920s the Jenkins book came first. From 1929, with Wodehouse's American serials running ahead of the British ones, the American book often beat Jenkins by a week or two, and after the war Joy in the Morning came out in New York the best part of a year before London. Our guide to first editions versus first American editions explains why British collectors still pay most for the Jenkins book even where it is technically second.

The A & C Black school stories, 1902 to 1910

Wodehouse's first book was The Pothunters, published by A & C Black on 18 September 1902 in blue cloth with a silver cup blocked on the front board and spine, with plates by R. Noel Pocock. Jonkers and Christie's both catalogue it as McIlvaine A1a. Neil Pearson Rare Books describes the first issue as having no advertisements at the end, and the later issues are the problem: Black reissued the sheets with its catalogue bound in and the 1902 date still on the title page. Christie's sold one such copy catalogued as "1902 [but 1915]", with eight pages of adverts. A Pothunters dated 1902 is therefore not automatically a first issue; look for the absence of adverts and the sharpness of the silver.

Black followed with A Prefect's Uncle and Tales of St. Austin's (1903), The Gold Bat (1904), The Head of Kay's (1905), The White Feather (1907), Mike (1909) and Psmith in the City (1910). Christie's noted that the first issue of A Prefect's Uncle likewise lacks the terminal adverts. Macmillan in New York sold these titles from imported British sheets, so there is no separate American first to argue about.

How Herbert Jenkins marked its first editions

Jenkins used neither a number line nor a "first edition" statement, so dealers identify its firsts by a handful of habits that McIlvaine recorded.

The date on the title page. A first impression carries the year, in the 1920s usually in Roman numerals: Jill the Reckless reads MCMXXI, The Inimitable Jeeves MCMXXIII. Three Is a Collection notes that most later impressions of Jill the Reckless are undated, and other reprints carry a printing statement on the verso, such as the "Twelfth Printing" First Place Books records on a later Inimitable Jeeves. A dated title page with no reprint notice is where you start.

The list of titles facing the half-title. Jenkins listed the author's other titles on the verso of the half-title and added each new book, so the count tells you how late in the run your copy was printed. For The Inimitable Jeeves, John Atkinson and George Bayntun both record ten titles in the first issue of May 1923, from Piccadilly Jim to The Clicking of Cuthbert, and eleven in the later issue of November 1923, which adds Leave It to Psmith. Freeman's catalogued a first of Leave It to Psmith itself by its eleven listed titles, a count we have seen in that one source only.

The printer. For Piccadilly Jim, the first Jenkins Wodehouse, Rare and Antique Books reports that the first impression names W. M. Brendon and Son as printer on the verso and the second Love and Malcomson, with runs of 5,000 and 2,000. We have not found that point in a second source, so treat it as reported rather than settled.

Adverts. The rule is not simple. The first of Jill the Reckless lacks the six pages of adverts that later printings carry, but John Atkinson's first of Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940) has four pages of adverts at the rear. Check the title in hand rather than applying one rule to the shelf.

The jacket price. Jenkins priced its new novels at 7/6 through the 1920s and 1930s: Jill the Reckless in 1921, The Luck of the Bodkins in 1935, The Code of the Woosters in 1938 and Eggs, Beans and Crumpets in 1940 all carry it. Reprint jackets were priced at 2/6, 3/6, 4/- or 5/-, often with a sticker over the earlier figure, and list books that did not exist when the first came out. That is how First Place Books dated the jacket on one 1925 Carry On, Jeeves to 1949, and how Peter Harrington separates the first-issue jacket of The Luck of the Bodkins, which advertises twelve Arthur Gask mysteries, from the later one. Our guide to points of issue explains how such tells come to be known.

The Jeeves and Blandings highlights

The Inimitable Jeeves, 1923. The first full-length Jeeves book, green pictorial cloth with a dark green silhouette on the front board, McIlvaine A30a; the ten-title list marks the first issue. Doran's edition appeared in September as Jeeves. A jacketed Jenkins first made £6,930 at Christie's in 2023, while John Atkinson lists a first issue without jacket at £385.

Leave It to Psmith, 1923. Green pictorial cloth lettered in black, McIlvaine A31a. Christie's described the jacket as extremely scarce when selling a defective example.

Carry On, Jeeves, 1925. Apple green cloth with black lettering and vignette, McIlvaine A34a, two years ahead of Doran. Jonkers calls the jacket seldom encountered in nice condition, and because the book stayed in print for decades, married jackets from the 1940s are common.

Summer Lightning, 1929, and Heavy Weather, 1933. Both central Blandings novels appeared in America first, Summer Lightning as Fish Preferred. The Jenkins Heavy Weather is blue cloth with a jacket by K B Studio; the Little, Brown first is black cloth with a pictorial jacket.

Very Good, Jeeves, 1930. The Doubleday, Doran edition of 20 June is the true first, McIlvaine A42a, in orange cloth; the Jenkins book of 4 July is A42b. Jonkers offers the American first in a price-clipped jacket at £950, and John Atkinson a jacketless Jenkins first at £165.

Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, 1934. Both Jenkins firsts came before Little, Brown's, the second under the American title Brinkley Manor. Right Ho, Jeeves is stone-grey cloth lettered in red with a jacket by Abbey, McIlvaine A52a. A first in its original jacket sold at Christie's in September 2023 for £5,040 against an estimate of £1,500 to £2,000.

The Code of the Woosters, 1938. Published in London and New York on the same day, so each edition is the first in its own country. The Jenkins book, McIlvaine A60b, is in cloth that Jonkers calls turquoise and Christie's and First Place Books call green, lettered in black, with a jacket by Fenwick priced 7/6. First Place Books asks $4,000 for a jacketed first.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime, 1939, and Joy in the Morning, 1947. Both American firsts preceded Jenkins. The Jenkins Joy in the Morning is orange cloth in a jacket by Frank Ford, McIlvaine A65b, and undated; the Doubleday first of August 1946 is the true first.

The McIlvaine bibliography

When a dealer writes "McIlvaine A60b" they are citing P. G. Wodehouse: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Checklist by Eileen McIlvaine, Louise S. Sherby and James H. Heineman, published by Heineman in New York in 1990. The P G Wodehouse Society (UK) calls it the principal source and notes a 2001 addendum edited by Tony Ring. Section A numbers the books in order of first publication, with a letter for each edition: A42a is the Doubleday, Doran Very Good, Jeeves and A42b the Jenkins one, so the number tells you at once which country's edition is being sold.

The jacket problem

Jenkins books from the 1920s survive in quantity, but their jackets do not. Christie's called the Leave It to Psmith jacket extremely scarce, Jonkers calls the Carry On, Jeeves jacket seldom encountered in nice condition and the Inimitable Jeeves jacket scarce, and for My Man Jeeves (Newnes, 1919) Jonkers reports only one copy known in the original 1/9 jacket, while Bonhams could find no other jacketed copy sold at auction when it offered a second impression in 2014.

The price gap follows: the jacketed Inimitable Jeeves at £6,930 and the jacketless one at £385 are the same book in different clothes. That gap is why married and reproduction jackets turn up, and why the price and the titles on a jacket must match the year of the book. Our guides to dust jackets and facsimile dust jackets cover the tells.

Traps

Later impressions in first-edition jackets. Jenkins kept the same jacket art in use for years. Three Is a Collection notes that the Blampied jacket on Jill the Reckless stayed in use into the 1940s and that later impressions in it are common and cheap. A reprint jacket on a first, or a first jacket on a reprint, is caught by the price and the title list, not by the picture.

The Autograph Edition. From 1956 Jenkins reissued the backlist in a uniform Autograph Edition, named for the author's signature reproduced on the book: A Damsel in Distress and The Inimitable Jeeves in 1956, Young Men in Spats in 1957, Jill the Reckless in 1958, with later titles into the 1960s. Dealers describe them as reprints or as "first edition thus". They are good reading copies at tens of pounds, not first editions.

American reprints and book club copies. Doran's and Doubleday's Wodehouse titles were reissued by A. L. Burt and Grosset and Dunlap from the original plates, so the text looks like the first; the imprint on the title page and spine gives them away. Our guide to book club editions covers the general tells, such as a jacket flap without a price.

"First edition" without a country. A Jenkins Very Good, Jeeves or Joy in the Morning is a first English edition, and an honest listing says so; the McIlvaine letter settles it. The same care applies to dates, as the 1902 reissues of The Pothunters show: a date proves only that the type was not reset.

What they have sold for

Prices below are reported results, not valuations. The Christie's results are from the sale of Charlie Watts's library, Literature and Jazz Part II, London, September 2023, and include the buyer's premium.

Book	Sale	Price
A Damsel in Distress, Jenkins 1919, first in original jacket	Christie's, September 2023	£21,420
The Inimitable Jeeves, Jenkins 1923, first in original jacket	Christie's, September 2023	£6,930, as reported by Fine Books and Collections
Six A & C Black school firsts including The Pothunters, no jackets	Christie's, September 2023, lot 433	£6,048
Right Ho, Jeeves, Jenkins 1934, first in original jacket	Christie's, 29 September 2023, lot 428	£5,040
Thirteen Blandings volumes, UK and US firsts, mostly in jackets	Christie's, September 2023, lot 434	£3,528
The Pothunters, 1902, signed by Wodehouse, no jacket	Freeman's, Philadelphia, Toplis collection, 7 May 2020, lot 105	$1,950, as reported by The Hot Bid

For comparison, Jonkers asks £5,000 for a near fine unsigned first of The Pothunters, and Rare and Antique Books £1,300 for a jacketless first impression of Piccadilly Jim; asking prices are not sales. If you own one of these books, grade it honestly, check the title page, the title list and the jacket price, and compare it with sold copies in the same state.