Ruggles of Red Gap

by Harry Leon Wilson

A humorous adventure about a British valet out of his element in a small Western town in the USA. Ruggles becomes the servant of an American couple after his employer uses him as a stake in a poker game. He travels to the West and is mistakenly identified as a wealthy Brit. He becomes a small town celebrity with many humorous twists in the plot.

Ruggles of Red Gap was initially serialized beginning December 26, 1914 in The Saturday Evening Post and became a best selling novel in 1915, adapted for the Broadway stage as a musical the same year and made into a film several times, most famously in 1935 starring Charles Laughton.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Classics, Westerns, Historical Fiction

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Editor of the humor magazine Puck 1896-1902.

Reviews

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gathered that the Mixer at her own cattle-farm had been watching her calves marked with her monogram, though I would never have credited her with so much sentiment.

Much, much better than the 1930s movie. Possibly because the movie mostly reduced it to slapstick, whereas the wit of the book is all in Ruggles' narration. In the book I picture him more as resembling Jeeves, not Charles Laughton! And when you take a proper English valet with a wholesale ignorance of America and more class-consciousness and snobbery than the most blue-blooded aristocrat, and send him out West, you're bound to get some wonderfully funny situations. (One of my favorite running jokes was how Ruggles continually compares every place and situation he encounters to its English equivalent—I cracked up at the scene in Paris where he mentions crossing "their Thames.")

I gathered at once that the Americans have actually named one of our colonies "Washington" after the rebel George Washington, though one would have thought that the indelicacy of this would have been only too apparent...I could not but reflect how shocked our King would be to learn of this effrontery.

Lost in a card game by his English employer, the Honorable George, gentleman's gentleman Ruggles is tasked by his new American employer's social-climbing wife with refining their Cousin Egbert, who most definitely does not want to be refined. Though subjected to shock after shock to his sense of propriety on his journey across the wilderness of America, once he has spent some time in the Western town of Red Gap, Ruggles begins to find himself strangely drawn to the American democratic ways of behaving. When he finally decides to "take up America," the consequences to Red Gap—and to his former employer's family—are far-reaching! Really, you could almost describe it as a "Jeeves Goes West"—witty, satirical fun.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! I almost gave this up while they were still in Paris because I didn't really like any of the characters, but the writing was so good and the premise so intriguing that I kept at it and I was richly rewarded. For me, things really picked up once Ruggles got to America. By the end, I wanted to give "Ruggums" a big hug and "three rousing cheers!" The characterization here is genius; as Ruggles tells his story, you can feel Wilson winking at you across the pages and you want to wink right back as much as to say, "yes, of course, I see right through ol' Ruggles just as you wanted me to!" Ruggles reminded me of Jeeves meets Doc Martin (from the British show starring by Martin Clunes) and he is at once endearing and vexing ;-) What really stands out to me with the writing is that even as Ruggles' horizons were forcibly expanded, and his ideals evolve, his basic personality remains unchanged and the tone throughout is pitch-perfect. (I think this is much more true to life than the stories where protagonists change so much you would hardly recognize them by the end.) The supporting characters are all extremely well-drawn, Belknap-Jackson, Mrs. Effie, "The Mixer" and Cousin Egbert especially. Like the best humor, it allows us to laugh our way to deep truths about the human condition and ultimately lays bare the utter madness of humanity's penchant to make "much ado about nothing" and about the folly and injustice of the class system and of ethnocentrism. It's a very progressive novel for it's time (excluding a few rather painful references to other races but it's not as bad as some of the books of this era and confined primarily to word choice in describing ethnicity "coon" for an African-American, "Jap" for a Japanese-American) and the lessons still hold meaning for us today. Highly recommend! There's so much more I could say if I had the time; happily, Elizabeth said much of it in her fine review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely popular book in its day, adapted into movies (Bob Hope and Lucille Ball in "Sitting Pretty", Charles laughton is in the good version) and television. Much like P. J. Wodehouse in style,word play, and tone. Hard to find these days. An very proper English bulter is lost in a card game to an American couple and has to adapt to life on the slightly more raw edges of American society. A comedy of manners between the social pretensions of the wife and the easy going, frontier life of the husband, with Ruggles in the middle.

[John Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1935 movie with Charles Laughton (and, in a bit of fortuitous casting, Charlie Ruggles as the Honorable George) is pretty near perfect, but the 1915 book is subtler and a touch less sentimental, and it has more jokes. In fact, it's consistently hilarious, which is a remarkable feat for a book that (truth be told) is twice as long as it has to be. I was amazed at the author's ability to carry off an extended work with a blinkered and somewhat unreliable narrator, making clear what's really going on between the lines.

The book was originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, so it's particularly easy to put down and pick up again over a few nights. Watch for the word "snarky," which shows up more than once, several decades before one could have imagined.

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entirely fluffy book about social shifts in a small but growing western town in the stagecoach days. Clever and comforting story with no surprises except in the nuggets of humor.
The one downside is that, as one of many misunderstandings the British character never recognizes, is the continuing use of the word ' racoon' to refer to some black people. It jarred me every single time. It was supposed to be one of many humorous misapprehensions he had of America but that part just didn't stand the test of time.

[John Kulm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was quite a phenomenon when it was published in 1915. Four films were made based on the book. The author wrote a series of other books with the same characters. The book is hardly remembered today
If you're the kind of person who enjoys reading what's trendy... well, this was trendy over a hundred years ago. You download it free on Kindle.
I read it because it takes place in Red Gap washington, and I live ten miles from a Washington ghost town called Lowgap. I was curious whether I'd find similarities, and... not an exact match!

[Alena · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dry, funny book from the early 20th century, somewhat in the vein of PG Wodehouse. When Ruggles, a very proper British valet, is lost to a crude American by his master in a poker game, he must go to America, where he reevaluates his views on class, society, and Americans. The supporting characters are funny, and Ruggles himself is quite endearing despite how unaware he can be.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant bit of American propaganda illustrating the transformation of a stuffy English valet into a genuine Yankee. I've been rather spoiled by the 1935 movie version, I'm afraid, and that is a much more tightly-knit tale.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The movie was better - and not (surprisingly) just because it had ZaSu Pitts.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been on my "to read" list for decades, and it did not disappoint. More literary than I expected, but very humorous. I anticipated the ending, but enjoyed the ride.

[Charlie Plett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting more Western scenes, but what actually happened is that this man comes from England and goes to some undisclosed location in the US and the story only happens at that town and doesn't talk of any geographical location.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is sort of like Jeeves and Wooster but from Jeeves point of view, although Jeeves is a bit smarter than Ruggles. Perhaps 'Frazier Crane' would be a better comparison.
Ruggles is forced to go to america and deal with the lack of social distinctions. Its a pretty funny social comedy with Ruggles stuck between various factions and social classes.
The story certainly never went where i expected and Ruggles denseness to some of what was going on around him was always humorous.
It definitely improved as it went along as some of the early chapters were a bit of a slog to get through. I'm personally not much of a Wodehouse fan but if you like that sort of thing you'll probably like this too, i mean to say even more then i did, what what!

[Mikkel Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOOD READ.

GOOD READ.

A humorous story about the attempted caste system in the U.S.. I liked the way the story progressed in stages. No matter what solution was attempted to keep the classes intact, it backfired.

[Mary Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had some "struggles" with Mr. Ruggles. This is one case where I enjoyed the movie more than the book. I will say that I did enjoy some of it and can appreciate the difference between cultures and the time it was written (would now be considered extremely racist).