Barmy in Wonderland is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

, first published in the United Kingdom on 21 April 1952 by Herbert Jenkins

Barrie & Jenkins

Barrie & Jenkins was a small British publishing house that was formed in 1964 from the merger of "Herbert Jenkins" and "Barrie & Rockcliffe". One of their most notable authors was P. G...

, London, and in the United States on May 8, 1952 by Doubleday & Company, New York, under the title Angel Cake.

The central character is Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps , who also appears in several of the Jeeves

Jeeves

Reginald Jeeves is a fictional character in the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse, being the valet of Bertie Wooster . Created in 1915, Jeeves would continue to appear in Wodehouse's works until his final, completed, novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, making him Wodehouse's most famous...

 and Drones Club

Drones Club

The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a gentlemen's club in London. Many of his Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members....

 stories and novels. The book recounts his adventures in the theatrical world.

Wodehouse adapted the novel from a play, The Butter and Egg Man, by George S. Kaufman

George S. Kaufman

George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

 and, echoing Shakespeare's

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 dedication of his Sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...

, dedicated the US edition to "the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets, Mr G S K".

External links

• The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with a list of characters