Leave It to Psmith: a variorum edition

Leave It to Psmith (variorum edition) (PDF, 1,618 KB)

Hopefully this is only the first of several similar projects: an edition of a Wodehouse book that has already entered the public domain in the US, recording all the differences between the various versions of its text: magazines, UK and US books, and later editions. To do this I've used the fist edition of UK book as base text, and added footnotes with all the variants observed in other versions. (In one case in this particular book one section was so heavily rewritten that it was more practical to print the text in two columns.)

Edit January 2025: I've created a separate page for these variorum editions, and moved there a lot of introductory text that used to be in this post.

Conscription

From Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1918:

Infantry

"ENGLAND is carrying conscription too far," said P. G. Wodehouse, the English humorist now living in New York. "She's calling on the men of 50 and 52. 

"Why, at a Craydon tribunal the other day, the chairman said that men of 55 were just in their prime. At this rate we'll soon be too young at 40!"

He is speaking of the Military Service Tribunals where men of military age could apply for exemption from conscription; and the Military Act of April 1918 that extended the eligibility age to 17-51 (18-41 in the original 1916 Act).