Psmith, Journalist

Description

This is a comic novel by P.G. Wodehouse published originally in 1909-1910 in The Captain magazine. Despite its comic style, the work also includes some thriller-like twists and personages as well as an allusion to certain social problems and phenomena of those times.

The main character of the story, the talkative, suave, eccentric, silver-tongued but also sophisticated Psmith finds himself in New York, accompanying his friend Mike, who is here on a cricket tour. With not much to do, Psmith finds New York a bit dull but ultimately gets inspired after meeting Billy Windsor, who has been left to temporarily replace the main editor of a formerly family oriented newspaper, Cosy Moments, while the last was on a mountain vacation for 10 weeks dictated by his state of health. Psmith finds this as a great opportunity to get involved and volunteers to act as unpaid subeditor to try to bring a fresh breath to the periodical.

The view of the “Pleasant Street”, a slum neighborhood that Psmith and Mike wandered into, upsets the young journalist, who decides to bring this issue under the journal’s spotlight.In addition, he tries to promote a young boxer, Kid Brady who complains about the difficulty of making it into the unfair world of New York boxing. Engaging into these activities makes Psmith some influent enemies and triggers a series of events including stalking, bribery attempts and even intentions to eliminate Psmith and his assistant of which they become aware from a man sent by Bat Jarvis, an influent gangster, whom Psmith befriended after returning his beloved cat, for which the later is highly grateful.Despite all these impediments, through his series of concerning articles directed at social problems, Psmith manages to double the readership in a short time interval.


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