First published in 1927, this free verse poem has become an essential part of American literature.

    "Queen Lucia" was published in 1920, "Miss Mapp" in 1922 and "Lucia in London" in 1927. They are much-loved novels of provincial snobbery and became a successful television series.

    Mr Mulliner, his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid, has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: in particular there's Wilfred, inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream and Snow of the Mountain Lotion, who lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance. Its explosive effects on a shy young curate and then the higher clergy is gravely revealed. Then there's his cousin James, the detective-story writer, who has inherited a cottage more haunted than anything in his own imagination. And Isadore Zinzinheimer, head of the Bigger, Better & Brighter Motion Picture Company. Tall tales all - but among Wodehouse's best.

    Undoubtedly the greatest is his beloved Molly's fearsome stepmother, Mrs. Waddington, who has her eye on an eligible English lord for a son-in-law. Luckily, George has an ally in sharp-witted Hamilton Beamish, an old family friend of the Waddingtons, not to mention George's butler, Mullett, and his light-fingered girlfriend, Fanny, whose valuable skills are of particular interest to the would-be father-in-law. Wodehouse is the greatest comic writer ever. (Douglas Adams) Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in. (Evelyn Waugh) Author Bio: P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) grew up in England and came to the United States just before World War I, when he married an American. He wrote more than 90 books, and his works, translated into many languages, have won him worldwide acclaim.

    Politically radical, the essays ridicule militarism, prudery & religious intolerance. Ten were originally published in Max Eastman's magazine, The Masses, the 1st in '14. Following passage of the Espionage Act of '17, The Masses was suppressed by the US government on grounds it was detrimental to the war effort. Wood continued to write more discourses. In '27 Vanguard published a collection of 41 of them under the title Heavenly Discourse. Titles include: Is God a Jew; Marriage; God Receives a Delegation; Freedom; The Monkeys Complain; Birth Control; Anthony Comstock in Heaven; Prohibition; Billy Sunday Meets God; The US Must Be Pure; Billy Sunday Instructs God; A Fly Bothers God; St Peter Loses a Soul; Preparedness in Heaven; Prayer; Satan Brings the US into the War; A Pacifist Enters Heaven-in Bits; The Stupid Cannot Enter Heaven; T.R. Enters Heaven; Prince Buttinsky; God, Paul & Satan on Christianity; Satan Loses His Mind; God's Picnic; God's Picnic & the Playwright; Rabelais & Censors; Censorship; God & Christ Have a Merry Christmas; Denver Prays for Rain; God on Catholicism & the KKK; God Advises Peter as to the Church; Bishop Wm Montgomery Brown Enters Heaven; God & St Peter Discuss Theology; Joan of Arc-Heretic & Saint; Satan Regains His Reason; Charles Evans Hughes Visits Heaven w/out a Passport & Is Deported; England's General Strike; The Lame Duck & Imperialism; The Golden Rule; Satan Asks for Help; Noah's Cruise; & God's in His Heaven-All's Wrong w/the World. In Billy Sunday meets God, Sunday is surprised to find people he condemned in heaven. "Why, there is Herman Morgenstern. I sent him to hell. He kept a family beer garden on 4th Avenue in New York...What is he doing here?" Jesus replies "I liked him. He was a gentle, charitable soul." Sunday objects that he kept a beer salon, & Jesus replies "I lived with publicans & sinners." Sunday complains about the presence in Heaven of a woman who had had an illegitimate child; Jesus replies "I liked her. The one with her is Mary Magdalen." From A Pacifist enters Heaven—in bits:BATTERED SOUL: I'm a pacifist. GOD: A what? BATTERED SOUL: A pacifist. I believe in Jesus & peace. GOD: So you are a Christian? BATTERED SOUL: O, no. I really do believe in peace. In a discourse on Preparedness in Heaven, God decides to prepare for a war against Satan.GABRIEL: I am afraid Heaven won't stand for that. Jesus has preached peace too long. GOD: ...We must first frighten them, fill them with fear, then with hate. For example, headlines in the Heavenly Herald: "Horrible Atrocities of Satan," "Make the Cosmos Safe for Jesus," "Satan Threatens Your Halos," "Satan Disembowels a Cherub," "Satan Rapes the Ten Foolish Virgins" & so on... GABRIEL: But none of this will be true. GOD: True? Of course, it won't. Don't be a fool, Gabriel. You can't work up a war—preparedness, I mean—on the truth. This is war—I mean preparedness—& we simply must lie—the more horrible the lies the better.

    He meets Birinchi Baba who claims to be an ageless holy man. Birinchi Baba tells stories from the past; about his arguments with 'Pluto' about time, how he taught E=mc2 to Einstein, and was on first-name terms with Jesus Christ and Buddha. Birinchi Baba has a growing band of rich devotees.Nibaran, a family friend, realizes that Birinchi Baba is a fraud. This short story is a witty account of Birinchi Baba's growing fame and Nibaran's attempts at exposing Birinchi Baba.