Rare Books

"French Leave" 1955 WODEHOUSE, P.G. (SOLD)

WODEHOUSE, P.G.

[206] pp.

Herbert Jenkins

1955

First Printing

7 1/2" x 5"

Dust wrapper artwork by Sax

VG/ VG

French Leave is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 20 January 1956 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 28 September 1959 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York.

French Leave was adapted from Guy Bolton's 1938 stage play, Three Blind Mice, which Bolton wrote under the pseudonym Stephen Powys. The play had been performed in London and adapted as a film three times: Three Blind Mice (1938), Moon Over Miami (1941), and Three Little Girls in Blue (1946). Bolton's play was also made into a Broadway stage musical, Walk With Music (1940).

In the novel, American chicken farmer Teresa "Terry" Trent spends her vacation with her sisters in the French towns of St. Rocque (introduced in Hot Water) and Roville, and falls in love with a French writer.

The title of the novel stems from the expression french leave – to leave without saying goodbye to one's host or hostess.