Author Brian Halford will appear alongside Warwickshire CCC captain Jim Troughton at The Bear Pit Theatre next week as part of the Stratford-Upon-Avon Literary Festival - which runs throughout April and the first week of May.

Halford - author of The Real Jeeves - and Troughton will talk about the fascinating and tragic story of young cricketer Percy Jeeves whose glorious life was snuffed out during the First World War, but whose name will live forever.

Halford's latest book tells the real life story of the former England and Warwickshire cricketer, the inspiration for PG Wodehouse’s famous butler. But as Jeeves the butler smoothed the dramas of Bertie Wooster, the Real Jeeves was contracting trench foot in the deadly mudbath of Arras.

A fan of cricket, Wodehouse explained more than 50 years later: "I suppose Jeeves's bowling must have impressed me, for I remembered him in 1916 when I was in New York and starting the Jeeves and Bertie saga, and it was just the name I wanted. I remember admiring his action very much."

The event will kick-off an important few days for Halford, who's book has been shortlisted for the Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award for 2014.

The winner will be announced at an awards evening in the Long Room at Lord's on Friday 9th May - before a sell-out audience of members of the Cricket Society and MCC, shortlisted authors, publishers, and some of today's finest cricket writers and journalists.

Click here to read what the critics have said about The Real Jeeves.

Click here to read a sample first chapter of The Real Jeeves.