Giving us our first jaw-dropping encounter with Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, Love Among the Chickens, published in 1906 (and revised in 1920 to accommodate the inflation in egg prices), launched P. G. Wodehouse's career, and that of his larger-than-life anti-hero.

Ukridge has hit upon a foolproof plan to get rich quick: he's starting a chicken farm. Dragging his adoring wife Millie and his long-suffering friend and novelist Jeremy Garnet with him to Dorset he begins his enterprise. En route, however, Garnet has fallen in love.

Complications in classic Wodehousian style ensue, involving the taciturn Hired Man and his bumptious dog Bob, supercilious chickens, irascible professors, angry creditors and divided lovers. For the lucky reader, it is sheer hilarity ...