Does one desire the Yule-tide spirit, sir? Certainly one does. I am all for it.

Aunts, engagements, misunderstandings and hangover cures; this delightful collection from the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness (Julian Fellowes) brings together a bakers dozen of P. G. Wodehouses finest short stories.

A comic master David Walliams

A cavalcade of perfect joy Caitlin Moran

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as Plum) wrote more than ninety novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Anglers Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentines Day.