New York: Appleton, 1915

8vo, pp. 347. Original red boards, lettered in gilt to front panel and spine. Two scarabs in green and gilt to front panel. A little cocked, hinges starting, small ownership signature to front pastedown, a small splash to front board.

First edition, first issue. THE FIRST BOOK IN THE BLANDINGS SERIES, IN WHICH WE MEET LORD EMSWORTH AND HIS PRIZE-WINNING PIG, THE EMPRESS OF BLANDINGS, FOR THE FIRST TIME.

'Doesn't the cover of the Saturday Evening Post look good this week?', wrote Wodehouse to his friend Leslie Havergal Bradshaw on 25 June 1915. Something New was a breakthrough novel for Wodehouse, marking his first serialisation (June - Aug. 1915) in the Saturday Evening Post. In an interview with the Paris Review shortly before his death, he revealed just how big a breakthrough it was:

'The Saturday Evening Post gave me my first break. I wrote a novel called Something New and they bought it for $3500 and serialised it. Then they bought Uneasy Money, Piccadilly Jim and A Damsel In Distress and gave me a raise with each one, $5,000, $7,500 and $10,000.'

His fees became handsomer still as over the next five decades he went on to place a total of twenty-one serialisations with the all-conquering Post.

Published thirteen days later in the UK with the title Something Fresh.