SOURCE: “Jeeve's England,” in National Review, December 11, 1995, p 132.

In the following essay, originally written in 1961, Lejeune claims that The Ice in the Bedroom is “an exhibition of easy mastery, of familiar skill, as incomparable in its special way as Fred Astaire's dancing.”

This year P. G. Wodehouse, whose world is ageless spring-time, celebrates his eightieth birthday; and his new book, The Ice in the Bedroom, gives us an opportunity to pay our respects. It is his best book for some while; an exhibition of easy mastery, of familiar skill, as incomparable in its special way as Fred Astaire's dancing. He has written scores of books just as good, of course; but the point is that no one else has.

The Ice in the Bedroom takes us back to the elysian London suburb of Valley Fields, where we find ensconced in adjoining houses Freddie Widgeon, whose allowance has been...