The Best of Jennings

Prion recently published The Best of Jennings, which some might argue is a bit of a misnomer as it contains the first four Jennings novels rather than a calculated selection from the Jennings canon of "the best". Mind you, the first four are as good a selection as any.

This collection features Jennings Goes to School, Jennings Follows a Clue, Jennings' Little Hut and Jennings and Darbishire, originally published between 1950 and 1952. I re-read the first some while back and it was as hilarious as it was the first time I read it forty or so years ago. I was a bit nervous that the language would be as fossilised as I've now become but it was still an utter wheeze to read.

The four novels appears to be of the original texts, with tuppenny bus fairs intact, which is something all readers should appreciate. The books are of their time, as are the lives that our heroes experience at Linbury Court boarding school and no amount of updating could improve the stories for a "modern" audience. I know this from my own reading of the books (and the Billy Bunter and Lone Pine books, all those years ago): they were nothing like the schools I attended or the holidays of my childhood any more than Hogwarts has any comparison to a modern comprehensive. The Jennings novels are historical documents of a time long gone and any child will quickly understand that fact and immerse themselves in this rich and very different world.

Of course, a new audience isn't what Prion are after. The book is for those of us afflicted with the nostalgia bug and, as far as I'm concerned, they could not have chosen a better author to revive.

The Best of Jennings. Prion ISBN 978-1853757242, October 2008.