Summer Lightning

First published in 1929, this Blandings Castle novel turns on Galahad Threepwood's threat to publish memoirs that would embarrass a generation of English respectability. Lord Emsworth wants only to show the Empress of Blandings at the agricultural show; his sister Connie wants the memoirs stopped; impostors, a secretary, and young lovers use the pig, the manuscript, and the castle's many bedrooms as leverage. Beach the butler and the efficient Baxter reappear. The book is a country-house farce, not a detective story despite its thefts and not a satire of one real family.

64 pen-and-wash, including nine full-page, one spread across two pages, 21 head-pieces and seven tail-pieces. Dark blue slipcase. A separate issue of the 2004 Best of Blandings set.