What ho! It may be almost 40 years since their last appearance, but Bertie Wooster and his "gentleman's personal gentleman" Jeeves are due to return this November when Sebastian Faulks dons the mantle of their much-loved creator, PG Wodehouse.

Faulks, who is becoming used to slipping into the skin of classic authors, after publishing a bestselling James Bond novel in 2008, was approached by the Wodehouse estate to take on the first ever authorised Wodehouse follow-up. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, described as "a homage to PG Wodehouse" by the author's estate, will be published on 6 November by Hutchinson, also home to Wodehouse's later novels.

Few other details were given away by the publisher, but it did say that the new novel would "be faithful to the history and personality of Wodehouse's characters but by shining a different light on them will also show how robust, durable and lovable these creations are". The adventures – and attempts to avoid the perils of matrimony - of the foppish aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his manservant Jeeves have enchanted readers ever since Wodehouse first introduced them in the short story Extricating Young Gussie in 1915. They went on to star in many more novels and stories, culminating in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, written shortly before his death, when the author was well into his nineties.

Faulks, a lifelong fan of Wodehouse, reading his first Jeeves story when he was 12 and recently rereading much of the author's work while travelling in India, was the "perfect person" to continue the adventures of Jeeves and Wooster, said the publisher. In his 2011 book Faulks on Fiction, Faulks wrote that a scene from The Mating Season, a Jeeves novel in which Bertie impersonates his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, running into Gussie's simpering fiancee Madeline, was probably his favourite "in the whole canon of English literature".

The Birdsong author called it an "honour" to have been asked to work with "these greatly loved characters". Admitting that Wodehouse is "inimitable", he promised to "do the very best I can, with respect and with gratitude for all the pleasure the books have given, but also with a light heart".

"I hope my story will ring bells with aficionados but also bring new readers to these wonderful books," said Faulks. The author's authorised 007 novel, Devil May Care, sold more than 44,000 copies in its first four days in the shops and drew largely positive reviews. "Daggers should be withdrawn. It's good," wrote Euan Ferguson in the Observer. "Faulks has done in some ways an absolutely sterling job. He has resisted pastiche."

But Robert McCrum, author of a biography of Wodehouse and Observer associate editor, called Faulks "a brave man" to take Jeeves and Wooster on. "Wodehouse is a much tougher egg than Fleming and 007/Bond. For a PG Wodehouse fan to write a new Jeeves novel is a bit like asking a devout Christian to come up with a fifth gospel," said McCrum. "It looks perilously like Mission Impossible to me, but I wish Faulks the very best of luck. If anyone can pull it off, he can."