Madcap Myrtle by Rosie M Banks

Title: Madcap Myrtle 

Author: Rosie M Banks 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: The Inimitable Jeeves by P G Wodehouse (1923)

People don’t use the word madcap much these days do they? It makes Madcap Myrtle sound very dated. But a romantic novel from the 1920s probably would feel dated. 

And I wonder how many baby girls have been named Myrtle in the last 20 years? That dates this book too. I imagine her with bobbed hair and a drop waisted dress. And obviously in black and white like a silent movie.

Rosie M Banks is a prolific romantic novelist. Her works are featured in seven Wodehouse books, and many short stories. Rosie marries Bingo Little, a friend of Bertie Wooster, and a member of the Drones Club. Bingo appears in many Jeeves and Wooster stories, and after a few years of marriage, he and Rosie have a baby: Algernon Aubrey.*

Rosie M Banks’s books include All for Love, 

A Red, Red Summer Rose, 

Madcap Myrtle, 

Only a Factory Girl, 

The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick, 

The Woman Who Braved All, 

‘Twas Once in May, 

By Honour Bound, 

A Kiss at Twilight 

and Mervyn Keene, Clubman. I don’t think any of these book titles would work for a modern book.

Rosie M Banks’s fans include Bingo’s uncle Lord Bittlesham, Madeline Bassett and American author Kirk Rockaway. One of Jeeves’s aunts has a complete set of her works. Bertie Wooster considers her work to be some of the most pronounced and widely-read tripe ever put on the market.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say.

* In some mysterious fashion, boys name Aubrey has been appropriated by Americans as a name for girls. Typical.

Thanks to the English Garden