Barmy in Wonderland

By P. G. Wodehouse

Categories: Humor & Entertainment, Literature & Fiction

Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps, known to the Drones Club as Barmy, is working as a desk clerk at an American hotel when Barmy in Wonderland (1952; US title Angel Cake) opens. Wodehouse based the novel on George S. Kaufman's play The Butter and Egg Man. Hoping to impress Dinty Moore, the girl he loves, Barmy sinks his modest inheritance into a Broadway comedy. Producers, temperamental actors and nervous backers all get a satirical going-over.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “P. G. Wodehouse. I’ve read almost everything he wrote. He once explained that there were two ways of writing novels. “One is mine, making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music, ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right down deep into life and not caring a damn.” He did the former better than almost anyone.”