Summer Lightning is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 1 July 1929 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, under the title Fish Preferred, and in the United Kingdom on 19 July 1929 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It was serialised in The Pall Mall Magazine (UK) between March and August 1929 and in Collier's (US) from 6 April to 22 June 1929.
It forms part of the Blandings Castle saga, being the third full-length novel to be set there, after Something Fresh (1915) and Leave It to Psmith (1923). Heavy Weather (1933) forms a semi-sequel to the story, with many of the same characters involved.
The novel has twice been adapted as a film, with the 1933 version Summer Lightning directed by Maclean Rogers. A 1938 Swedish adaptation, under the title Thunder and Lightning, was directed by Anders Henrikson and starred Olof Winnerstrand and his wife Frida Winnerstrand.
In 1987, the book was adapted as a radio drama in the Blandings radio series.
A stage play, adapted by Giles Havergal, was first performed at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre in 1992; a 1998 revival starred Helen Baxendale as Sue Brown. The play was performed at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake in 2009.
The novel was dramatised by Archie Scottney for BBC Radio 4 in 2010, with Charles Dance as Galahad Threepwood, Patricia Hodge as Lady Constance, Martin Jarvis as Lord Emsworth, and Ian Ogilvy as the narrator. (wikipedia.org)
About the Author
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE (15 October 1881 - 14 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school, he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.
Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.
Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared to comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers. (wikipedia.org)
