Uncle Fred

From the author whom the Times called "a comic genius" and "an old master of farce" come eleven further stories featuring such eccentric characters as Freddie Widgeon, Cyril (Barmy) Fotheringay Phipps, Percy Wimbolt, and Pongo. This collection includes the stories "Fate," "Tried in the Furnace," "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh," "The Amazing Hat Mystery," "Goodbye to All Cats," "The Luck of the Stiffhams," "Noblesse Oblige," "Uncle Fred Flits By," "Archibald and the Masses," "The Code of the Mulliners," and "The Fiery Wooing of Mordred."

Uncle Fred swans in to upset the idyll that is Blandings Castle. The old rou's arrival sets off a series of events which are packed full of farcical foiled love affairs, erratic engagements, dodgy diets, affable arguments and pig pilfering.

Uncle Fred, or to give him his full title of Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham, is considered by some as a splendid gentleman-a sportsman to his fingertips. Mr. Twistleton, nephew to the Earl, and otherwise known as Pongo to his friends, has a differing view. He simply describes his uncle as being loopy to the tonsils. But when the eccentric and well-loved Uncle Fred plays Cupid to Lord Emsworth, his old friend at Blandings Castle, little did he know that he would be known as Impostor A and the Lord's beloved pig, the Empress, as Impostor B.

A chance meeting on a train brought together Lord Ickenham and Bill Oakshott-although being told that the love of his life, Hermione, was engaged to none other than Pongo, Lord Ickenham's nephew, did make Bill feel like he'd been struck behind the ear. But Pongo has troubles of his own to deal with when he accidently breaks one of Hermione's father's prized statues-and winds up replacing it with a smuggling vessel full of jewels.

If Lord Ickenham had not succumbed to the temptation to dislodge the hat of Beefy Bastable, the irascible QC, with a well-aimed Brazil nut, the latter's famous legal mind might never have been stimulated to literature. But the incident provoked Beefy to write his exposé of the younger generation, a novel so shocking that it caused endless repercussions for its hapless author, and sparked off a whole series of outrageous misunderstandings that it would take the inventive talents of Lord Ickenham himself to resolve.

The debonair Uncle Fred makes a welcome return to Blandings, where plotting and confusion is rife. Blackmail, sabotage, jilted lovers and pigs under threat of kidnap all feature largely, making this hilarious instalment in the Blandings series irresistible to fans and newcomers alike.The story sees lovely debutante Myra Schoonmaker unhappily ensconced in Blandings at the insistence of Lady Constance Keeble, who objects to Myra's entanglement with down-at-heel curate Bill Bailey. But Blandings never has been a place to stifle the wants of the heart for long. Soon, all kinds of subterfuge and shifty goings-on are afoot to reunite the lovebirds, with the help of an unbeatable cast of misfits and society schmoozers including Pongo Twistleton, Lord Tilbury, Lavender Briggs and of course, amiably vague Lord Emsworth and his trusty 'man-mountain' butler Beach.

The description of his ancestral seat as an earthly paradise would, at present, have struck its proprietor as ironical, full as it was with unwanted and troublesome inhabitants. What Lord Emsworth needed above all was a rugged ally at his side to remove from Blandings its superfluous guests, leaving him in peace to tend his beloved pig, Empress of Blandings. However, when Lord Ickenham is on a sweetness-and-light-spreading expedition, there's always apt to be trouble.