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.
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Jonathan Cecil (1939–2011) was a vastly experienced actor, appearing at Shakespeare’s Globe as well as in such West End productions as The Importance of Being Earnest, The Seagull, and The Bed before Yesterday. He toured in The Incomparable Max, Twelfth Night, and An Ideal Husband, while among his considerable television and film appearances were The Rector’s Wife, Just William, Murder Most Horrid, and As You Like It.
John Rayburn (1927–2024) was a veteran of sixty-two years in broadcasting. He served as a news and sports anchor and show host, and his television newscast achieved the largest share-of-audience figures of any major-market television newscast in the nation. He was a member of the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame. His network credits include reports and/or appearances on The Today Show, Huntley-Brinkley News, Walter Cronkite News, NBC Monitor, NBC News on the Hour, and others. He recorded dozens of books for the National Library Service and narrated innumerable radio and television recordings.