Great Schott! New Jeeves title to Hutchinson

Ben Schott, creator of Schott’s Original Miscellany, is switching to fiction to write a new title in P G Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster series for Hutchinson.

Publishing director Jocasta Hamilton bought world rights to Schott’s Jeeves and the King of Clubs from Natasha Fairweather at Rogers, Coleridge & White in a six-figure deal.

The novel, written with approval of the Wodehouse Estate, sees the foppish Bertie Wooster and his impeccable valet Reginald Jeeves become spies in the interwar period.

Schott said it was an honour to “follow in the patent-leather footsteps” of Wodehouse, who “opened up an empire of comic writing on which the sun has never set”.

The book follows Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks, which Hutchinson published in 2013.

Hutchinson published Wodehouse’s later works, and since 2008 all titles owned by the Wodehouse Estate have been issued by Hutchinson’s fellow Random House imprint Arrow. Hutchison and Arrow recently renewed their licences with the estate for a further 10 years.

In November, Arrow will launch Wodehouse Pick-Me-Ups, a series of small-format paperbacks each containing three short stories.