Summer Lightning: Complete & Unabridged (Blandings Castle Comedies)

Clarence, the ninth Earl of Emsworth, is at home in his castle in Shropshire where he dotes on his famous prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings. Having dispatched his earlier secretary, Baxter, Clarence is at peace contemplating how his pig will win again when he learns from his brother Galahad (Gally) that the neighbor's pig man is offering 3:1 odds against the Empress. Clarence and Gally presume that their neighbor, Sir Gregory Parsloe is planning to knobble the Empress. Their worst fears are borne out when the Empress disappears!

At the same time, Parsloe lives in fear that Gally will publish old stories about his wild younger days in Gally's new book. Clarence's and Gally's sister Connie wants to stop publication as well. Soon the castle is overrun with manuscript thieves!

At the same time, love is in the air. Clarence's new secretary, Hugo Carmody, is secretly and unsuitably in love with Millicent Threepwood, niece to Clarence, Connie and Gally, and Millicent is in love with him. But they need to get some financial help to pull off the merger.

Ronald Fish, a wealthy young man whose money is tied with Clarence, is also in love with an unsuitable person . . . one Sue Brown who is a chorus girl. Ronnie has proven himself to be a poor judge of investments in the past, and Clarence is skeptical of allowing any more money. It doesn't help when Clarence finds that Ronnie doesn't truly share his love of pigs!

Will love win out? Of course! It's a P.G. Wodehouse book. But before love wins, humor will take the day in many silly scenes worthy of Shakespeare's best in the forest of Arden.


A very good, light read   November 21, 2003
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

What Ho! Anyone wanting to escape for a while to a pleasant little world full of bizarrly funny, yet lovable characters must read this. I too read an earliar version, in the "signiture series" i beleive, and it was an absolutley spiffing read. Jolly good and all that. It is set at Blandings castle, a large property owned by the rather forgetfull Lord Emsworth, whos only care is his prize winning pig, the Empress of Blandings. Along come many other great characters to disturb his little world, and chaos ensues. A jolly good read.


Hillarious   March 15, 2001
Ganime B. Akin (Istanbul, Turkey)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

Although the one I read was an earlier edition, since the content is the same I can recommend this book to anyone who has no objection to laughing out loud when reading a novel. The novel is set in a bizarre aristocratic family circle and is about a prize winning pig called "Summer Lightening". More than once, when reading the novel, I couldn't stifle my laugh. I am surprised to see that nobody has written a review about this which I take as its not being widely read. If you like humour it's a must-read.