The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Among the Chickens, by P. G. Wodehouse

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Title: Love Among the Chickens

Author: P. G. Wodehouse

Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3829]
Release Date: March, 2003
First Posted: September 30, 2001
Last Updated: January 22, 2005

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS ***

Produced by Charles and Dagny. HTML version by Al Haines.

LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS

BY

P. G. WODEHOUSE

DEDICATION

TO W. TOWNEND

DEAR BILL,--

I have never been much of a lad for the

TO-----

But For Whose Sympathy and Encouragement
This Book
Would Never Have Been Written

type of dedication. It sounds so weak-minded. But in the case of Love
Among the Chickens it is unavoidable. It was not so much that you
sympathised and encouraged--where you really came out strong was that
you gave me the stuff. I like people who sympathise with me. I am
grateful to those who encourage me. But the man to whom I raise the
Wodehouse hat--owing to the increased cost of living, the same old
brown one I had last year--it is being complained of on all sides, but
the public must bear it like men till the straw hat season comes
round--I say, the man to whom I raise this venerable relic is the man
who gives me the material.

Sixteen years ago, my William, when we were young and spritely lads;
when you were a tricky centre-forward and I a fast bowler; when your
head was covered with hair and my list of "Hobbies" in Who's Who
included Boxing; I received from you one morning about thirty
closely-written foolscap pages, giving me the details of your friend
-----'s adventures on his Devonshire chicken farm. Round these I wove
as funny a plot as I could, but the book stands or falls by the stuff
you gave me about "Ukridge"--the things that actually happened.

You will notice that I have practically re-written the book. There was
some pretty bad work in it, and it had "dated." As an instance of the
way in which the march of modern civilisation has left the 1906 edition
b