P. G. Wodehouse PDF

P. G.
Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE (/ˈwʊdhaʊs/; 15 October 1881 – 14
February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humourists
of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong
Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he
remained devoted all his life. After leaving school, he was employed by a bank but
disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were
mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular
characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the jolly
gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet Jeeves; the immaculate
and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest
Member, with stories about golf; andMr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging
from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.
Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, although he spent much of his life in
the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and Wodehouse in 1930, age 48
short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the
First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an
important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931
interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary
career reached a new peak.
In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons; in 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and
interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, which had not yet entered
the war. The talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in the
UK, and a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse never returned to England. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual
British-American citizenship in 1955. He was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays,
two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, Southampton,
in New York.
Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two
years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story.
Early in his career he would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture
of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has
been compared with comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his
fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers.
Contents
Life and career
Early years
Reluctant banker; budding writer: 1900–08
Psmith, Blandings, Wooster and Jeeves: 1908–15
Broadway: 1915–19
1920s
Hollywood: 1929–31
Best-seller: 1930s
Second World War: internment and broadcasts
Aftermath: reactions and investigation
American exile: 1946–75
Writing
Technique and approach
Language
Reception and reputation
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
External links
Life and career
Early years
Wodehouse was born inGuildford, Surrey, the third son of Henry Ernest Wodehouse (1845–1929), a magistrate resident in the British
colony of Hong Kong, and his wife, Eleanor (1861–1941), daughter of the Rev John Bathurst Deane. The Wodehouses, who traced
their ancestry back to the 13th century, belonged to a cadet branch of the family of the earls of Kimberley. Eleanor Wodehouse was
also of ancient aristocratic ancestry.[1] She was visiting her sister in Guildford when W
odehouse was born there prematurely.[2]
The boy was baptised at theChurch of St Nicolas, Guildford,[3] and was named after
his godfather, Pelham von Donop.[4] Wodehouse wrote in 1957, "If you ask me to
tell you frankly if I like the name Pelham Grenville W
odehouse, I must confess that I
do not. ... I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it but a small
silver mug which I lost in 1897."[5][n 1] The first name was rapidly elided to "Plum",
the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends.[6]
Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was
raised by a Chinese amah (nurse), alongside his elder brothers Peveril (1877–1951)
and Armine (1879–1936).[7][n 2] When he was two, the brothers were brought to
England, where they were placed under the care of an English nanny in a house St Nicolas, Guildford, where
adjoining that of Eleanor's father and mother.[4] The boys' parents returned to Hong Wodehouse was christened
Kong and became virtual strangers to their sons. Such an arrangement was then
normal for middle-class families based in the colonies.[9] The lack of parental
contact, and the harsh regime of some of those in loco parentis, left permanent emotional scars on many children from similar
backgrounds, including the writers Thackeray, Saki, Kipling and Walpole.[10] Wodehouse was more fortunate; his nanny, Emma
Roper, was strict but not unkind, and both with her and later at his different schools Wodehouse had a generally happy
childhood.[11][12] His recollection was that "it went like a breeze from start to finish, with everybody I met understanding me
perfectly".[12] The biographer Robert McCrum suggests that nonetheless Wodehouse's isolation from his parents left a psychological
mark, causing him to avoid emotional engagement both in life and in his works.[13] Another biographer, Frances Donaldson, writes,
"Deprived so early, not merely of maternal love, but of home life and even a stable background, Wodehouse consoled himself from
[2]
the youngest age in an imaginary world of his own."
In 1886 the brothers were sent to a dame-school in Croydon, where they spent three years. Peveril was then found to have a "weak
chest";[14] sea air was prescribed, and the three boys were moved toElizabeth College on the island of Guernsey. In 1891 Wodehouse
went on to Malvern House Preparatory School in Kent, which concentrated on preparing its pupils for entry to the Royal Navy. His
father had planned a naval career for him, but the boy's eyesight was found to be too poor for it. He was unimpressed by the school's
narrow curriculum and zealous discipline; he later parodied it in his novels, with Bertie Wooster recalling his early years as a pupil at
[15]
a "penitentiary ... with the outward guise of a prep school" called Malvern House.
Throughout their school years the brothers were sent to stay during the holidays with various uncles and aunts from both sides of the
family. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Iain Sproat counts twenty aunts and considers that they played an important
part not only in Wodehouse's early life, but, thinly disguised, in his mature novels, as the formidable aunts who dominate the action in
the Wooster, Blandings, and other stories. The boys had fifteen uncles, four of whom were cler
gymen. Sproat writes that they inspired
[16]
Wodehouse's "pious but fallible curates, vicars, and bishops, of which he wrote with friendly irreverence but without mockery".
At the age of twelve in 1894, to his great joy, Wodehouse was able to follow
He has the most distorted ideas about wit and his brother Armine to Dulwich College.[18] He was entirely at home there;
humour; he draws over his books and
Donaldson comments that Dulwich gave him, for the first time, "some
examination papers in the most distressing
way and writes foolish rhymes in other continuity and a stable and ordered life." He loved the camaraderie,
people's books. Notwithstanding he has a distinguished himself at cricket, rugby and boxing, and was a good, if not
genuine interest in literature and can often consistently diligent, student.[19] The headmaster at the time was A.H.
talk with enthusiasm and good sense about it.
Gilkes, a respected classicist, who was a strong influence on Wodehouse.[2]
— Dulwich College report on Wodehouse, In a study of Wodehouse's works, Richard Usborne argues that "only a
1899.[17] writer who was himself a scholar and had had his face ground into Latin and
Greek (especially Thucydides) as a boy" could sustain the complex
sequences of subordinate clauses sometimes found in Wodehouse's comic
prose.[20][n 3]
Wodehouse's six years at Dulwich were among the happiest of his life: "To me the years between 1894 and 1900 were like
heaven."[21] In addition to his sporting achievements he was a good singer and enjoyed taking part in school concerts; his literary
leanings found an outlet in editing the school magazine, The Alleynian.[22] For the rest of his life he remained devoted to the school.
The biographer Barry Phelps writes that W ."[23]
odehouse "loved the college as much as he loved anything or anybody
Reluctant banker; budding writer: 1900–08

Wodehouse expected to follow Armine to the University of Oxford, but the family's finances
took a turn for the worse at the crucial moment. Ernest Wodehouse had retired in 1895, and
his pension was paid in rupees; fluctuation against the pound reduced its value in Britain.
Wodehouse recalled, "The wolf was not actually whining at the door and there was always a
little something in the kitty for the butcher and the grocer, but the finances would not run to
anything in the nature of a splash".[24][n 4] Instead of a university career, in September 1900
Wodehouse was engaged in a junior position in the London office of the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank. He was unsuited to it and found the work baffling and uncongenial. He later
wrote a humorous account of his experiences at the bank,[26] but at the time he longed for the
end of each working day, when he could return to his rented lodgings in Chelsea and write.[27]
At first he concentrated, with some success, on serious articles about school sports for Public
School Magazine. In November 1900 his first comic piece, "Men Who Missed Their Own
Weddings," was accepted by Tit-Bits.[28] A new magazine for boys, The Captain, provided
further well-paid opportunities, and during his two years at the bank, Wodehouse had eighty Cover of Wodehouse's first
published novel, 1902
pieces published in a total of nine magazines.[29]
In 1901, with the help of a former Dulwich master, William Beach Thomas, Wodehouse
secured an appointment—at first temporary and later permanent—writing for The Globe's popular "By the Way" column. He held the
post until 1909.[30] At around the same time his first novel was published—a school story called The Pothunters, serialised
incomplete in Public School Magazinein early 1902, and issued in full in hardback in September.[31] He resigned from the bank that
month to devote himself to writing full-time.[32][n 5]
Between the publication of The Pothunters 1902 and that of Mike in 1909, Wodehouse wrote
eight novels and co-wrote another two. The critic R.D.B. French writes that, of Wodehouse's
work from this period, almost all that deserves to survive is the school fiction.[34] Looking
back in the 1950s Wodehouse viewed these as his apprentice years: "I was practically in
[35]
swaddling clothes and it is extremely creditable to me that I was able to write at all."
From his boyhood Wodehouse had been fascinated by America, which he conceived of as "a
land of romance"; he "yearned" to visit the country, and by 1904 he had earned enough to do
so.[36] In April he sailed to New York, which he found greatly to his liking. He noted in his
diary: "In New York gathering experience. Worth many guineas in the future but none for the
moment".[37] This prediction proved correct: few British writers had first-hand experience of
the US, and his articles about life in New York brought him higher than usual fees.[38] He
later recalled that "in 1904 anyone in the London writing world who had been to America was
Wodehouse in 1904, aged
regarded with awe and looked upon as an authority on that terra incognita. ... After that trip to 23
New York I was a man who counted.... My income rose like a rocketing pheasant."[39]
Wodehouse's other new venture in 1904 was writing for the stage. Towards the
There are pleasant little spots my heart is end of the year the librettist Owen Hall invited him to contribute an additional
fixed on, lyric for a musical comedy Sergeant Brue.[41][n 6] Wodehouse had loved theatre
Down at Parkhurst or at Portland on the since his first visit, aged thirteen, when Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience had made
sea, him "drunk with ecstasy".[44] His lyric for Hall, "Put Me in My Little Cell", was
And some put up at Holloway and Brixton, a Gilbertian number for a trio of comic crooks, with music by Frederick
But Pentonville is good enough for me. Rosse;[45] it was well received and launched Wodehouse on a career as a theatre
writer that spanned three decades.[46]
— From Wodehouse's first lyric for a stage
show, 1904.[40] Although it made little impact on its first publication, the 1906 novel Love
Among the Chickens contained what French calls the author's first original comic
creation: Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.[47] The character, an amoral,
bungling opportunist, is partly based on Wodehouse's Globe colleague Herbert Westbrook. The two collaborated between 1907 and
1913 on two books, two music hall sketches, and a play, Brother Alfred.[48][n 7] Wodehouse would return to the character in short
stories over the next six decades.[50]
In early 1906 the actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to become resident lyricist at theAldwych Theatre, to add topical
verses to newly imported or long-running shows. Hicks had already recruited the young Jerome Kern to write the music for such
songs. The first Kern-Wodehouse collaboration, a comic number for The Beauty of Bath titled "Mr [Joseph] Chamberlain", was a
[51]
show-stopper and was briefly the most popular song in London.
Psmith, Blandings, Wooster and Jeeves: 1908–15

Wodehouse's early period as a writer came to an end in 1908 with the serialisation of
The Lost Lambs, published the following year in
book form as the second half of the novel Mike.[52] The work begins as a conventional school story, but Wodehouse introduces a new
and strikingly original character, Psmith,[53] whose creation both Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell regarded as a watershed in
Wodehouse's development.[52] Wodehouse said that he based Psmith on the hotelier and impresario Rupert D'Oyly Carte—"the only
thing in my literary career which was handed to me on a silver plate with watercress around it".[54] Wodehouse wrote in the 1970s
that a cousin of his who had been at school with Carte told him of the latter's monocle, studied suavity, and stateliness of speech, all
of which Wodehouse adopted for his new character.[54][n 8] Psmith featured in three more novels: Psmith in the City (1910), a
burlesque of banking;Psmith, Journalist (1915) set in New York; and Leave It to Psmith (1923), set at Blandings Castle.[56]
In May 1909 Wodehouse made his second visit to New Y

ork, where he sold two short stories toCosmopolitan and Collier's for a total
of $500, a much higher fee than he had commanded previously.[57] He resigned from The Globe and stayed in New York for nearly a
year. He sold many more stories, but none of the American publications offered a permanent relationship and guaranteed income.[30]
Wodehouse returned to England in late 1910, rejoining The Globe and also contributing regularly to The
Strand Magazine. Between then and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he revisited America
frequently.[58]
Wodehouse was in New York when the war began. Ineligible for military service because of his poor
eyesight, he remained in the US throughout the war, detached from the conflict in Europe and absorbed in
his theatrical and literary concerns.[2] In September 1914 he married Ethel May Wayman, née Newton
(1885–1984), an English widow. The marriage proved happy and lifelong. Ethel's personality was in
contrast with her husband's: he was shy and impractical; she was gregarious, decisive and well organised.
In Sproat's phrase, she "took charge of Wodehouse's life and made certain that he had the peace and quiet
he needed to write".[16] There were no children of the marriage, but Wodehouse came to love Ethel's
.[59][n 9]
daughter Leonora (1905–1944) and legally adopted her
Wodehouse experimented with different genres of fiction in these

years; his Psmith, Journalist, mixing comedy with social comment on
slum landlords and racketeers, was published in 1915.[61] In the same
year The Saturday Evening Post paid $3,500 to serialise Something
New, the first of what became a series of novels set at Blandings
Castle.[62] It was published in hardback in the US and the UK in the
Psmith, drawn by
same year (the British edition being retitled Something Fresh).[49] It T.M.R. Whitwell
was Wodehouse's first farcical novel; it was also his first best-seller, for first edition of
and although his later books included some gentler
, lightly sentimental Mike (1909)
stories, it was as a farceur that he became known.[63] Later in the
same year "Extricating Young Gussie", the first story about Bertie and
Jeeves, was published.[n 10] These stories introduced two sets of characters about whom
My Man Jeeves, 1920 Wodehouse wrote for the rest of his life. The Blandings Castle stories, set in an English stately
edition home, depict the attempts of the placid Lord Emsworth to evade the many distractions around
him, which include successive pairs of young lovers, the machinations of his exuberant brother
Galahad, the demands of his domineering sisters and super-efficient secretaries, and anything
detrimental to his prize sow, the Empress of Blandings.[65] The Bertie and Jeeves stories feature an amiable young man-about-town,
[66]
regularly rescued from the consequences of his idiocy by the benign interference of his valet.
Broadway: 1915–19
A third milestone in Wodehouse's life came towards the end of 1915: his
old songwriting partner Jerome Kern introduced him to the writer Guy
Bolton, who became Wodehouse's closest friend and a regular
collaborator. Bolton and Kern had a musical, Very Good Eddie, running
at the Princess Theatre in New York. The show was successful, but they
thought the song lyrics weak and invited Wodehouse to join them on its
successor. This was Miss Springtime (1916), which ran for 227
performances—a good run by the standards of the day. The team
produced several more successes, including Leave It to Jane (1917), Oh, Morris Gest, Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, F. Ray
Comstock and Jerome Kern, c. 1917
Boy! (1917–18) and Oh, Lady! Lady!! (1918), and Wodehouse and
Bolton wrote a few more shows with other composers.[67][n 11] In these
Ira Gershwin.[69]
musicals Wodehouse's lyrics won high praise from critics as well as fellow lyricists such as
Unlike his original model, Gilbert, Wodehouse preferred the music to be written first, fitting his words into the melodies.[70]
Donaldson suggests that this is the reason why his lyrics have largely been overlooked in recent years: they fit the music perfectly,
but do not stand on their own in verse form as Gilbert's do.[71] Nonetheless, Donaldson adds, the book and lyrics for the Princess
Theatre shows made the collaborators an enormous fortune and played an important part in the development of the American
musical.[72] In the Grove Dictionary of American Music Larry Stempel writes, "By presenting naturalistic stories and characters and
attempting to integrate the songs and lyrics into the action of the libretto, these works brought a new level of intimacy, cohesion, and
sophistication to American musical comedy."[73] The theatre writer Gerald Bordman calls Wodehouse "the most observant, literate,
and witty lyricist of his day".[74] The composer Richard Rodgers wrote, "Before Larry Hart, only P.G. Wodehouse had made any real
[75]
assault on the intelligence of the song-listening public."
1920s
In the years after the war, Wodehouse steadily increased his sales, polished his existing characters and introduced new ones. Bertie
and Jeeves, Lord Emsworth and his circle, and Ukridge appeared in novels and short stories;[n 12] Psmith made his fourth and last
appearance;[n 13] two new characters were the Oldest Member, narrating his series of golfing stories,[78] and Mr Mulliner, telling his
particularly tall tales to fellow patrons of the bar at the Angler's Rest.[79] Various other young men-about-town appeared in short
stories about members of theDrones Club.[n 14]
The Wodehouses returned to England, where they had a house in London for some
years, but Wodehouse continued to cross the Atlantic frequently, spending
substantial periods in New York.[2] He continued to work in the theatre. During the
Wodehouse's signature, undated 1920s he collaborated on nine musical comedies produced on Broadway or in the
West End, including the long-running Sally (1920, New York), The Cabaret Girl
(1922, London) and Rosalie (1928, New York).[81] He also wrote non-musical plays,
including The Play's the Thing (1926), adapted from Ferenc Molnár, and A Damsel in Distress (1928), a dramatisation of his 1919
novel.[82]
Though never a naturally gregarious man, Wodehouse was more sociable in the 1920s than at other periods. Donaldson lists among
those with whom he was on friendly terms writers including A.A. Milne, Ian Hay, Frederick Lonsdale and E. Phillips Oppenheim,
and stage performers includingGeorge Grossmith, Jr., Heather Thatcher and Dorothy Dickson.[83]
Hollywood: 1929–31
There had been films of Wodehouse stories since 1915, whenA Gentleman of Leisure was based on his 1910 novel of the same name.
Further screen adaptations of his books were made between then and 1927,[n 15] but it was not until 1929 that Wodehouse went to
Hollywood where Bolton was working as a highly paid writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Ethel was taken with both the
financial and social aspects of Hollywood life, and she negotiated a contract with MGM on her husband's behalf under which he
would be paid $2,000 a week.[85] This large salary was particularly welcome because the couple had lost considerable sums in the
Wall Street Crash of 1929.[86]
The contract started in May 1930, but the studio found little for Wodehouse
to do, and he had spare time to write a novel and nine short stories. He The actual work is negligible. ... So far, I
have had eight collaborators. The system is
commented, "It's odd how soon one comes to look on every minute as
that A. gets the original idea, B. comes in to
wasted that is given to earning one's salary."[87] Even when the studio found work with him on it, C. makes a scenario, D.
a project for him to work on, the interventions of committees and constant does preliminary dialogue, and then they
rewriting by numerous contract authors meant that his ideas were rarely send for me to insert Class and what-not.
Then E. and F., scenario writers, alter the plot
used. In a 2005 study of Wodehouse in Hollywood, Brian Taves writes that
and off we go again.
Those Three French Girls (1930) was "as close to a success as Wodehouse
— Wodehouse on working in Hollywood.[87]
was to have at MGM. His only other credits were minimal, and the other
projects he worked on were not produced."[88]
Wodehouse's contract ended after a year and was not renewed. At MGM's request, he gave an interview to The Los Angeles Times.
Wodehouse was described by Herbert Warren Wind as "politically naive [and] fundamentally unworldly,"[89] and he caused a
sensation by saying publicly what he had already told his friends privately about Hollywood's inefficiency, arbitrary decision-making,
and waste of expensive talent. The interview was reprinted in The New York Times, and there was much editorial comment about the
state of the film industry.[90] Many writers have considered that the interview precipitated a radical overhaul of the studio system,[91]
but Taves believes it to have been "a storm in a teacup", and Donaldson comments that, in the straitened post-crash era, the reforms
would have been inevitable.[92]
Wind's view of Wodehouse's naïveté is not universally held. Biographers including Donaldson, McCrum and Phelps suggest that his
unworldliness was only part of a complex character, and that in some respects he was highly astute.[93] He was unsparing of the
studio owners in his early-1930s short stories set in Hollywood, which contain what Taves considers Wodehouse's sharpest and most
biting satire.[94]
Best-seller: 1930s
During the 1930s Wodehouse's theatrical work tailed off. He wrote or adapted four plays for the West End; Leave it to Psmith (1930),
which he adapted in collaboration with Ian Hay, was the only one to have a long run.[n 16] The reviewer in The Manchester Guardian
praised the play, but commented: "It is Mr Wodehouse's own inimitable narrative comments and descriptions in his own person of the
antics of his puppets that one misses. They cannot be got into a play and they are at least half the fun of the novels."[96] In 1934
Wodehouse collaborated with Bolton on the book forCole Porter's Anything Goes (Porter wrote his own lyrics), but at the last minute
their version was almost entirely rewritten by others at the instigation of the producer, who disliked the original script.[n 17]
Concentrating on writing novels and short stories, Wodehouse reached the peak of his productivity in this decade, averaging two
books each year, and grossing an annual £100,000.[100][n 18]
His practice of dividing his time between Britain and America caused Wodehouse difficulties with the tax authorities of both
countries. Both the UK Inland Revenue and the US Internal Revenue Service sought to tax him as a resident.[n 19] After lengthy
negotiations the matter was settled, but the Wodehouses decided to change their residential status beyond doubt by moving to France,
where they bought a house nearLe Touquet in northern France.[103]
In 1936 Wodehouse created the last of his regular cast of principal

characters, Lord Ickenham, otherwise known as Uncle Fred, who, in There is no question that in making Mr P.G.
Wodehouse a doctor of letters the University
Usborne's words, "leads the dance in four novels and a short story ... a
has done the right and popular thing.
whirring dynamo of misrule".[105] His other books from the decade include Everyone knows at least some of his many
Right Ho, Jeeves, which Donaldson judged his best work, Uncle Fred in the works and has felt all the better for the gaiety
Springtime, which the writer Bernard Levin considered the best, and of his wit and the freshness of his style.
Blandings Castle, which contains "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend", — The Times on Wodehouse's honorary
which Rudyard Kipling thought "one of the most perfect short stories I have doctorate, June 1939[104]
ever read".[16]
Other leading literary figures who admired W

odehouse were A.E. Housman,
Max Beerbohm and Hilaire Belloc;[16] on the radio and in print Belloc called Wodehouse "the best writer of our time: the best living
writer of English ... the head of my profession".[106] Wodehouse regarded Belloc's plaudit as "a gag, to get a rise out of serious-
minded authors whom he disliked".[107][n 20] Wodehouse was never sure that his books had literary merit as well as popular appeal,
and, Donaldson suggests, must have been overwhelmed when the University of Oxford conferred an honorary doctorate of letters on
him in June 1939.[109][n 21] His visit to England for the awarding ceremony was the last time he set foot in his native land.
[111]
Second World War: internment and broadcasts

At the start of the Second World War Wodehouse and his wife remained at their Le Touquet house, where, during the Phoney War, he
worked on Joy in the Morning.[112] With the advance of the Germans, the nearby Royal Air Force base withdrew; Wodehouse was
offered the sole spare seat in one of the fighter aircraft, but he turned down the opportunity as it would have meant leaving behind
Ethel and their dog.[113] On 21 May 1940, with German troops advancing through northern France, the Wodehouses decided to drive
to Portugal and fly from there to the US. Two miles from home their car broke down, so they returned and borrowed a car from a
[114]
neighbour; with the routes blocked with refugees, they returned home again.
The Germans occupied Le Touquet on 22 May 1940 and Wodehouse had to report to the
authorities daily.[113] After two months of occupation the Germans interned all male enemy
nationals under 60, and Wodehouse was sent to a former prison in Loos, a suburb of Lille, on
21 July; Ethel remained in Le Touquet.[115][116] The internees were placed four to a cell, each
of which had been designed for one man.[117] One bed was available per cell, which was
made available to the eldest man—not Wodehouse, who slept on the granite floor.[118] The
prisoners were not kept long in Loos before they were transported in cattle trucks to a former
barracks in Liège which was run as a prison by the SS.[119] After a week the men were
transferred to Huy in Liège, Belgium, where they were incarcerated in the local citadel. They
remained there until September 1940, when they were transported to Tost in Upper Silesia
(then Germany, now Toszek in Poland).[120][n 22]
The Citadel of Huy, where Wodehouse's family and friends had not had any news of his location after the fall of France,
Wodehouse was imprisoned but an article from an Associated Press reporter who had visited Tost in December 1940 led to
in 1940
pressure on the German authorities to release the novelist. This included a petition from
influential people in the US; Senator W. Warren Barbour presented it to the German
ambassador. Although his captors refused to release him, Wodehouse was provided with a typewriter and, to pass the time, he wrote
Money in the Bank. Throughout his time in Tost, he sent postcards to his US literary agent asking for $5 to be sent to various people
in Canada, mentioning his name. These were the families of Canadian prisoners of war, and the news from Wodehouse was the first
indication that their sons were alive and well. W
odehouse risked severe punishment for the communication, but managed to evade the
German censor.[121]
On 21 June 1941, while he was in the middle of playing a game of cricket,

Wodehouse received a visit from two members of the Gestapo. He was I never was interested in politics. I'm quite
unable to work up any kind of belligerent
given ten minutes to pack his things before he was taken to theHotel Adlon,
feeling. Just as I'm about to feel belligerent
a top luxury hotel in Berlin. He stayed there at his own expense; royalties about some country I meet a decent sort of
from the German editions of his books had been put into a special frozen chap. We go out together and lose any
bank account at the outset of the war, and Wodehouse was permitted to draw fighting thoughts or feelings.
upon this money he had earned whilst staying in Berlin.[123] He was thus — Wodehouse, in his Berlin broadcasts.[122]
released from internment a few months before his sixtieth birthday—the age
at which civilian internees were released by the Nazis.[124] Shortly
afterwards Wodehouse was, in the words of Phelps, "cleverly trapped" into making five broadcasts to the US via German radio, with
the Berlin-based correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System.[125] The broadcasts—aired on 28 June, 9, 23 and 30 July, and
6 August—were titled How to be an Internee Without Previous Training, and comprised humorous anecdotes about Wodehouse's
experiences as a prisoner, including some gentle mocking of captors.[16][126] The German propaganda ministry arranged for the
recordings to be broadcast to Britain in August.[127] The day after Wodehouse recorded his final programme, Ethel joined him in
.[128]
Berlin, having sold most of her jewellery to pay for the journey
Aftermath: reactions and investigation

The reaction in Britain to Wodehouse's broadcasts was hostile, and he was "reviled ... as a traitor
, collaborator, Nazi propagandist, and
a coward",[16] although, Phelps observes, many of those who decried his actions had not heard the content of the programmes.[128] A
front-page article in The Daily Mirror stated that Wodehouse "lived luxuriously because Britain laughed with him, but when the
laughter was out of his country's heart, ... [he] was not ready to share her suffering. He hadn't the guts ... even to stick it out in the
internment camp."[129] In the House of Commons Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, regretted Wodehouse's actions.[130] Several
libraries removed Wodehouse novels from their shelves.[16]
On 15 July the journalist William Connor, under his pen name Cassandra, broadcast a postscript to the news programme railing
against Wodehouse. According to The Times, the broadcast "provoked a storm of complaint ... from listeners all over the
country".[131] Wodehouse's biographer, Joseph Connolly, thinks the broadcast "inaccurate, spiteful and slanderous";[132] Phelps calls
[133][n 23] The broadcast was made at the direct
it "probably the most vituperative attack on an individual ever heard on British radio".
instruction of Duff Cooper, the Minister of Information, who overruled strong protests made
by the BBC against the decision to air the programme.[131] Numerous letters appeared in the
British press, both supporting and criticising Wodehouse. The letters page of The Daily
Telegraph became a focus for censuring Wodehouse, including one from Wodehouse's friend,
A.A. Milne; a reply from their fellow author Compton Mackenzie in defence of Wodehouse
was not published because the editor claimed a lack of space.[136][n 24] Most of those
defending Wodehouse against accusations of disloyalty, including Sax Rohmer, Dorothy L.
Sayers and Gilbert Frankau, conceded that he had acted stupidly.[137] Some members of the
public wrote to the newspapers to say that the full facts were not yet known and a fair
judgment could not be made until they were.[138] The management of the BBC, who
considered Wodehouse's actions no worse than "ill advised", pointed out to Cooper that there
was no evidence at that point whether Wodehouse had acted voluntarily or under
Duff Cooper, 1941
compulsion.[139]
When Wodehouse heard of the furore the broadcasts had caused, he contacted the Foreign
Office—through the Swiss embassy in Berlin—to explain his actions, and attempted to return home via neutral countries, but the
German authorities refused to let him leave.[140][141] In Performing Flea, a 1953 collection of letters, Wodehouse wrote, "Of course I
ought to have had the sense to see that it was a loony thing to do to use the German radio for even the most harmless stuff, but I
didn't. I suppose prison life saps the intellect".[142] The reaction in America was mixed: the left-leaning publication P.M. accused
Wodehouse of "play[ing] Jeeves to the Nazis", but the Department of War used the interviews as an ideal representation of anti-Nazi
propaganda.[140]
The Wodehouses remained in Germany until September 1943, when Allied

bombing led to the couple being allowed to move back to Paris. They were The broadcasts, in point of fact, are neither
anti- nor pro-German, but just Wodehousian.
living there when the city was liberated on 25 August 1944; Wodehouse
He is a man singularly ill-fitted to live in a
reported to the American authorities the following day, asking them to time of ideological conflict, having no
inform the British of his whereabouts.[144] He was subsequently visited by feelings of hatred about anyone, and no very
Malcolm Muggeridge, recently arrived in Paris as an intelligence officer strong views about anything. ... I never heard
him speak bitterly about anyone—not even
with MI6.[145] The young officer quickly came to like Wodehouse and
about old friends who turned against him in
considered the question of treasonable behaviour as "ludicrous"; he summed distress. Such temperament does not make
[146] On 9
up the writer as "ill-fitted to live in an age of ideological conflict". for good citizenship in the second half of the
September Wodehouse was visited by an MI5 officer and former barrister, Twentieth Century.
Major Edward Cussen, who formally investigated him, a process that — Malcolm Muggeridge, discussing
stretched over four days. On 28 September Cussen filed his report, which Wodehouse's wartime broadcasts from
states that in regard to the broadcasts, Wodehouse's behaviour "has been Germany.[143]
unwise", but advised against further action. On 23 November Theobald
Matthew, the Director of Public Prosecutions, decided there was no
evidence to justify prosecuting Wodehouse.[147][148][n 25]
In November 1944 Duff Cooper was appointed British ambassador to France[149] and was provided accommodation at the Hôtel Le
Bristol, where the Wodehouses were living. Cooper complained to the French authorities, and the couple were moved to a different
hotel.[150] They were subsequently arrested by French police and placed under preventive detention, despite no charges being
presented. When Muggeridge tracked them down later, he managed to get Ethel released straight away and, four days later, ensured
that the French authorities declared Wodehouse unwell and put him in a nearby hospital, which was more comfortable than where
odehouse worked on his novelUncle Dynamite.[151]
they had been detained. While in this hospital, W
While still detained by the French, Wodehouse was again mentioned in questions in the House of Commons in December 1944 when
MPs wondered if the French authorities could repatriate him to stand trial. Eden stated that the "matter has been gone into, and,
according to the advice given, there are no grounds upon which we could take action".[152] Two months later George Orwell wrote
the essay "In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse",[n 26] where he stated that "it is important to realise that the events of 1941 do not convict
Wodehouse of anything worse than stupidity".[154] Orwell's rationale was that Wodehouse's "moral outlook has remained that of a
public-school boy, and according to the public-school code, treachery in time of war is the most unforgivable of all the sins", which
[155]
was compounded by his "complete lack—so far as one can judge from his printed works—of political awareness".
On 15 January 1945 the French authorities released Wodehouse,[156] but they did not inform him, until June 1946, that he would not
face any official charges and was free to leave the country.[157][n 27]
American exile: 1946–75

Having secured American visas in July 1946, the Wodehouses made preparations to return to New York. They were delayed by
Ethel's insistence on acquiring suitable new clothes and by Wodehouse's wish to finish writing his current novel, The Mating Season,
in the peace of the French countryside.[159] In April 1947 they sailed to New York, where Wodehouse was relieved at the friendly
reception he received from the large press contingent awaiting his arrival.[160] Ethel secured a comfortable penthouse apartment in
Manhattan's Upper East Side, but Wodehouse was not at ease. The New York that he had known before the war was much changed.
The magazines that had paid lavishly for his stories were in decline, and those that remained were not much interested in him. He was
sounded out about writing for Broadway, but he was not at home in the post-war theatre;[n 28] he had money problems, with large
sums temporarily tied up in Britain,[162] and for the first time in his career he had no ideas for a new novel.[163] He did not complete
one until 1951.[157]
Wodehouse remained unsettled until he and Ethel left New York City for suburban Long Island. Bolton and his wife lived in the
prosperous hamlet of Remsenburg, part of the Southampton resort area of Long Island, 77 miles (124 km) east of Manhattan.
Wodehouse stayed with them frequently, and in 1952 he and Ethel bought a house nearby. They lived at Remsenburg for the rest of
their lives. Between 1952 and 1975 he published more than twenty novels, as well as two collections of short stories, a heavily edited
collection of his letters, a volume of memoirs, and a selection of his magazine articles.[n 29] He continued to hanker after a revival of
his theatrical career. A 1959 off-Broadway revival of the 1917 Bolton-Wodehouse-Kern Leave It to Jane was a surprise hit, running
[165]
for 928 performances, but his few post-war stage works, some in collaboration with Bolton, made little impression.
Although Ethel made a return visit to England in 1948 to shop and visit
family and friends, Wodehouse never left America after his arrival in For Mr Wodehouse there has been no fall of
Man; no 'aboriginal calamity'. His characters
1947.[167] It was not until 1965 that the British government indicated
have never tasted the forbidden fruit. They
privately that he could return without fear of legal proceedings, and by then are still in Eden. The gardens of Blandings
he felt too old to make the journey.[168] The biographers Benny Green and Castle are that original garden from which
Robert McCrum both take the view that this exile benefited Wodehouse's we are all exiled. ... Mr Wodehouse's idyllic
world can never stale. He will continue to
writing, helping him to go on depicting an idealised England seen in his
[169]
release future generations from captivity that
mind's eye, rather than as it actually was in the post-war decades. may be more irksome than our own. He has
made a world for us to live in and delight in.
In 1955 Wodehouse became an American citizen,[170] though he remained a
— Evelyn Waugh, 1961[166]
British subject, and was therefore still eligible for UK state honours. He was
considered for the award of a knighthood three times from 1967, but the
honour was twice blocked by British officials.[171][n 30] In 1974 the British
prime minister, Harold Wilson, intervened to secure a knighthood (KBE) for Wodehouse, which was announced in January 1975, in
the same New Year Honours list in which Charlie Chaplin became Sir Charles.[171][173] The Times commented that Wodehouse's
honour signalled "official forgiveness for his wartime indiscretion. ... It is late, but not too late, to take the sting out of that unhappy
incident."[173]
The following month Wodehouse entered Southampton Hospital, Long Island, for treatment of a skin complaint. While there, he
suffered a heart attack and died on 14 February 1975 at the age of 93. He was buried at Remsenburg Presbyterian Church four days
[174]
later. Ethel outlived him by more than nine years;Leonora had predeceased him, dying suddenly in 1944.
Writing
Technique and approach
Before starting a book Wodehouse would write up to four hundred pages of
When in due course Charon ferries me across
notes bringing together an outline of the plot; he acknowledged that "It's the
the Styx and everyone is telling everyone
plots that I find so hard to work out. It takes such a long time to work one else what a rotten writer I was, I hope at least
out."[176] He always completed the plot before working on specific one voice will be heard piping up, 'But he did
character actions.[177] For a novel the note-writing process could take up to take trouble.'
two years, and he would usually have two or more novels in preparation — Wodehouse on Wodehouse, 1957[175]
simultaneously. After he had completed his notes, he would draw up a fuller
scenario of about thirty thousand words, which ensured plot holes were
avoided, and allowed for the dialogue to begin to develop.[178] When interviewed in 1975 he revealed that "For a humorous novel
you've got to have a scenario, and you've got to test it so that you know where the comedy comes in, where the situations come in ...
splitting it up into scenes (you can make a scene of almost anything) and have as little stuff in between as possible." He preferred
working between 4 and 7 pm—but never after dinner—and would work seven days a week. In his younger years, he would write
around two to three thousand words a day, although he slowed as he aged, so that in his nineties he would produce a thousand. The
reduced speed in writing slowed his production of books: when younger he would produce a novel in about three months, while
Bachelors Anonymous, published in 1973, took around six months.[176][179] Although studies of language production in normal
healthy ageing show a marked decline from the mid 70's on, a study of Wodehouse's works did not find any evidence of a decline in
linguistic ability with age.[180]
Wodehouse believed that one of the factors that made his stories humorous was his view of life, and he stated that "If you take life
fairly easily, then you take a humorous view of things. It's probably because you were born that way."[176] He carried this view
through into his writing, describing the approach as "making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music, and ignoring real life
altogether".[181] The literary critic Edward L. Galligan considers Wodehouse's stories to show his mastery in adapting the form of the
American musical comedy for his writings.[182] Wodehouse would ensure that his first draft was as carefully and accurately done as
possible, correcting and refining the prose as he wrote, and would then make another good copy, before proof reading again and then
making a final copy for his publisher.[177]
Most of Wodehouse's canon is set in an undated period around the 1920s and
1930s.[183] The critic Anthony Lejeune describes the settings of Wodehouse's
novels, such as the Drones Club and Blandings Castle, as "a fairyland".[184]
Although some critics thought Wodehouse's fiction was based on a world that had
never existed, Wodehouse affirmed that "it did. It was going strong between the
wars",[176] although he agreed that his version was to some extent "a sort of
artificial world of my own creation".[185] The novels showed a largely unchanging
world, regardless of when they were written,[183][184] and only rarely—and
mistakenly in McCrum's view—did Wodehouse allow modernity to intrude, as he
The English Heritage blue plaque for
did in the 1966 story "Bingo Bans the Bomb".[186]
Wodehouse at 17 Dunraven Street,
Mayfair, in the City of Westminster
When dealing with the dialogue in his novels, Wodehouse would consider the book's
characters as if they were actors in a play, ensuring that the main roles were kept
suitably employed throughout the storyline, which must be strong: "If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major
characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them."[176][187] Many of Wodehouse's parts were
stereotypes,[182] and he acknowledged that "a real character in one of my books sticks out like a sore thumb."[185] The publisher
Michael Joseph identifies that even within the stereotypes Wodehouse understood human nature, and therefore "shares with [Charles]
Dickens and Charles Chaplin the ability to present the comic resistance of the individual against those superior forces to which we
are all subject".[188]
Much of Wodehouse's use of slang terms reflects the influence of his time at school in Dulwich, and partly reflects Edwardian
slang.[189] As a young man he enjoyed the literary works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, and the operatic works of
Gilbert and Sullivan.[190] Wodehouse quotes from and alludes to numerous poets throughout his work. The scholar Clarke Olney lists
those quoted, includingMilton, Byron, Longfellow, Coleridge, Swinburne, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Shakespeare.[191]
Language
In 1941 the Concise Cambridge History of English Literature opined that
Wodehouse had "a gift for highly original aptness of phrase that almost suggests a
poet struggling for release among the wild extravagances of farce",[192] while
McCrum thinks that Wodehouse manages to combine "high farce with the inverted
poetry of his mature comic style", particularly in The Code of the Woosters;[189] the
novelist Anthony Powell believes Wodehouse to be a "comic poet".[193] Robert A.
Hall, Jr., in his study of Wodehouse's style and technique, describes the author as a
master of prose,[33] an opinion also shared by Levin, who considers Wodehouse
"one of the finest and purest writers of English prose".[194] Hall identifies several
techniques used by Wodehouse to achieve comic effect, including the creation of
new words through adding or removing prefixes and suffixes, so when Pongo
Twistleton removes the housemaid Elsie Bean from a cupboard, Wodehouse writes
that the character "de-Beaned the cupboard". Wodehouse created new words by
splitting others in two, thus Wodehouse divides "hobnobbing" when he writes: "To
offer a housemaid a cigarette is not hobbing. Nor, when you light it for her, does that
constitute nobbing."[33]
Richard Voorhees, Wodehouse's biographer, believes that the author used clichés in a
deliberate and ironic manner.[195] His opinion is shared by the academic Stephen Illustration from the 1910 novelA
Medcalf, who deems Wodehouse's skill is to "bring a cliché just enough to life to kill Gentleman of Leisure
it",[196] although Pamela March, writing in The Christian Science Monitor,
considers Wodehouse to have "an ability to decliché a cliché".[197] Medcalf provides
an example from Right Ho, Jeeves in which the teetotal Gussie Fink-Nottle has surreptitiously been given whisky and gin in a punch
prior to a prize-giving:
'It seems to me, Jeeves, that the ceremony may be one fraught with considerable interest.'
'Yes, sir.'
'What, in your opinion, will the harvest be?'
'One finds it difficult to hazard a conjecture, sir.'
'You mean imagination boggles?'
'Yes, sir.'
[196]
I inspected my imagination. He was right. It boggled.
The stylistic device most commonly found in Wodehouse's work is his use of comparative imagery that includes similes. Hall opines
that the humour comes from Wodehouse's ability to accentuate "resemblances which at first glance seem highly incongruous".
Examples can be seen in Joy in the Morning, Chapter 29: "There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently
on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action", or Psmith, Chapter 7: "A sound like two or three pigs feeding rather noisily in the
middle of a thunderstorm interrupted his meditation."[33] Hall also identifies that periodically Wodehouse used the stylistic device of
a transferred epithet, with an adjective that properly belongs to a person applied instead to some inanimate object. The form of
expression is used sparingly by Wodehouse in comparison with other mechanisms, only once or twice in a story or novel, according
to Hall.[198]
"I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar on the teaspoon."

—Joy in the Morning, Chapter 5
"As I sat in the bath-tub, soaping a meditative foot ..."
—Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Chapter 1
"The first thing he did was to prod Jeeves in the lower ribs with an uncouth forefinger
."
—Much Obliged, Jeeves, Chapter 4
Wordplay is a key element in Wodehouse's writing. This can take the form of puns, such as in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, when
Bertie is released after a night in the police cells, and says that he has "a pinched look" about him.[33] Linguistic confusion is another
humorous mechanism, such as inUncle Dynamite when Constable Potter says he has been "assaulted by the duck pond." In reply, Sir
Aylmer, confusing the two meanings of the word "by", asks: "How the devil can you be assaulted by a duck pond?"[33] Wodehouse
also uses metaphor and mixed metaphor to add humour. Some come through exaggeration, such as Bingo Little's infant child who
"not only has the aspect of a mass murderer, but that of a mass murderer suffering from an ingrown toenail", or Wooster's complaint
that "the rumpuses that Bobbie Wickham is already starting may be amusing to her, but not to the unfortunate toads beneath the
harrow whom she ruthlessly plunges into the soup."[199] Bertie Wooster's half-forgotten vocabulary also provides a further humorous
device. In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit Bertie asks Jeeves "Let a plugugly like young Thos loose in the community with a cosh, and
[33]
you are inviting disaster and ... what's the word? Something about cats." Jeeves replies, "Cataclysms, sir?"
Reception and reputation

Wodehouse's early career as a lyricist and playwright was profitable, and his work with Bolton, according to The Guardian, "was one
of the most successful in the history of musical comedy".[200] At the outbreak of the Second World War he was earning £40,000 a
year from his work, which had broadened to include novels and short stories.[201] Following the furore ensuing from the wartime
broadcasts, he suffered a downturn in his popularity and book sales; The Saturday Evening Post stopped publishing his short stories, a
[202]
stance they reversed in 1965, although his popularity—and the sales figures—slowly recovered over time.
Wodehouse received great praise from many of his contemporaries, including Max
Beerbohm, Rudyard Kipling, A.E. Housman[16] and Evelyn Waugh—the last of
whom opined, "One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average
three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes on each page."[203] There are
dissenters to the praise. The writer Alan Bennett thought that "inspired though his
language is, I can never take more than ten pages of the novels at a time, their
relentless flippancy wearing and tedious",[204] while the literary critic F. R. Leavis
wrote that Wodehouse had a "stereotyped humour ... of ingenious variations on a
laugh in one place".[205] In a 2010 study of Wodehouse's few relatively serious
novels, such as The Coming of Bill (1919), Jill the Reckless (1920) and The
Adventures of Sally (1922), David Heddendorf concluded that though their literary
quality does not match that of the farcical novels, they show a range of empathy and
interests that in real life—and in his most comic works—the author seemed to lack.
"Never oblivious to grief and despair, he opts in clear-eyed awareness for his
timeless world of spats and woolly-headed peers. It's an austere, almost bloodless
preference for pristine artifice over the pain and messy outcomes of actual existence,
but it's a case of Wodehouse keeping faith with his own unique art."[206]
Cover of Wodehouse's 1903 novelA
The American literary analyst Robert F. Kiernan, defining "camp" as "excessive Prefect's Uncle
stylization of whatever kind", bracketed Wodehouse as "a master of the camp
novel", along with Thomas Love Peacock, Max Beerbohm, Ronald Firbank, E. F.
Benson and Ivy Compton-Burnett.[207] The literary critic and writer Cyril Connolly calls Wodehouse a "politicians' author"—one
who does "not like art to be exacting and difficult".[208][n 31] Two former British prime ministers, H. H. Asquith and Tony Blair, are
on record as Wodehouse aficionados, and the latter became a patron of the Wodehouse Society.[2] Seán O'Casey, a successful
playwright of the 1920s, thought little of Wodehouse, commenting in 1941 that it was damaging to England's dignity that the public
or "the academic government of Oxford, dead from the chin up" considered Wodehouse an important figure in English literature.[209]
His jibe that Wodehouse was "English literature's performing flea" provided his target with the title of his collected letters, published
in 1953.[209]
The proposed nominations of Wodehouse for a knighthood in 1967 and 1971 were blocked for fear that such an award would "revive
the controversy of his wartime behaviour and give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which the embassy
was doing its best to eradicate".[172] When Wodehouse was awarded the knighthood, only four years later, the journalist Dennis
Barker wrote in The Guardian that the writer was "the solitary surviving English literary comic genius".[201] After his death six
weeks later, the journalist Michael Davie, writing in the same paper, observed that "Many people regarded ... [Wodehouse] as he
regarded Beachcomber, as 'one, if not more than one, of England's greatest men' ",[210] while in the view of the obituarist for The
[211]
Times Wodehouse "was a comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce".
Since Wodehouse's death, there have been numerous adaptations and dramatisations of his work on television and film,[16][212] and,
as of 2015, the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 1,750 quotations from Wodehouse, illustrating terms from crispish to
zippiness.[213] McCrum, writing in 2004, observed, "Wodehouse is more popular today than on the day he died", and "his comic
vision has an absolutely secure place in the English literary imagination."[214] Voorhees, while acknowledging that Wodehouse's
antecedents in literature range fromBen Jonson to Oscar Wilde, writes:
[I]t is now abundantly clear that Wodehouse is one of the funniest and most productive men who ever wrote in
English. He is far from being a mere jokesmith: he is an authentic craftsman, a wit and humorist of the first water, the
.[215]
inventor of a prose style which is a kind of comic poetry
In October 2018 it was announced that Wodehouse would be commemorated with a memorial stone inWestminster Abbey.[216][217]
Notes, references and sources
Notes
1. P.G. von Donop's middle name was George. It is unclear why Grenville was chosen for o Wdehouse. The academic
Sophie Ratcliffe speculates that Eleanor Wodehouse chose it because of her liking for lite
rary heroes. Sir Richard
Grenville is the hero of Tennyson's The Revenge; among the names Eleanor gave her other sons were Peveril from
Scott's Peveril of the Peak and Lancelot from Tennyson's Idylls of the King.[4]
2. A younger brother, Richard, was born in 1892. He "hardly featured in W odehouse's life," according to the biographer
Robert McCrum, living for most of his life inIndia and then China, and making a modest reputation as an amateur
cricketer.[8]
3. Usborne cites as an example a sentence fromMoney in the Bank (1942): "With the feeling, which was his constant
companion nowadays, for the wedding was fixed for the fifth of July and it was already the tenth of June, that if
anybody cared to describe him as some wild thing taken in a trap, which sees the trapper coming through the woods,
it would be all right with him, he threw a moody banana skin at the loudest of the sparrows, and went back into the
room."[20]
4. McCrum finds Ernest Wodehouse's decision inconsistent with the financial facts: he calculates that Ernest's income,
currency fluctuations notwithstanding, would comfortably have allowed him to send two sons to Oxford.[25]
5. Wodehouse primarily wrote under the name P

.G. Wodehouse, but occasionally used other names, including .P
Brooke-Haven, Melrose Grainger, Pelham Grenville, J. Plum, J. Walker Williams, C.P. West, Henry William-Jones
and Basil Windham.[33]
6. The piece had been running at theStrand Theatre since June;[42] it was common practice for musical comedies to
[43]
be refreshed with new material during their runs.
7. The two books were Not George Washington (1907) and The Globe By the Way Book (1908).[49]
8. In the opinion of Carte's daughter, Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte, the schoolboy described to Wodehouse was not her
father, who was shy and taciturn, but his more outgoing elder brother Lucas.[55]
9. Leonora took Wodehouse's surname until she married Peter Cazalet in 1932.[60]
10. In this story Bertie's surname is evidently not W
ooster but Mannering-Phipps, and Jeeves is not yet the omniscient
deus ex machina he was soon to become in subsequent stories. [64]
11. The shows by the trio at the Princess and other New o
Yrk theatres had runs varying from 475 performances forOh,
Boy! to 48 for Miss 1917.[68]
12. In The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) and Carry on Jeeves (1925); Leave it to Psmith (1923, a Blandings novel despite its
title); and Ukridge (1924).[76]
13. In Leave it to Psmith (1923).[77]
14. Among the members of this fictionalMayfair club are Psmith, Bertie Wooster, two of Mr Mulliner's nephews and Lord
Emsworth's younger son, Freddie Threepwood. Fifty other young male W odehouse characters are also identified as
members. [80] Wodehouse published two collections of short stories about the escapades of various Drones:Young
Men in Spats (1936) and Eggs, Beans and Crumpets(1940). Members of the club feature in other collections,
including A Few Quick Ones (1959) and Plum Pie (1966).[80]
15. They included the feature filmsUneasy Money (1918), A Damsel in Distress (1919), The Prince and Betty (1919),
Piccadilly Jim (1920), Their Mutual Child (1920, from the novel published in the UK asThe Coming of Bill), and The
Small Bachelor (1927).[84]
16. It ran for 156 performances;Who's Who co-written with Bolton ran for 19 performances;Good Morning. Bill for 78;
and The Inside Stand for 50.[95]
17. Bolton and Wodehouse's original book was set on a shipwrecked ocean liner; shortly before the Broadway opening a
shipping disaster off the coast of New Jersey caused the deaths of 138 passengers and crew members. The
producer decided that the plot would seem in bad taste in the circumstances, and was evidently glad of the pretext to
jettison the original book, with which he was unhappy.[97] For the London production in 1935 Wodehouse revised the
dialogue and rewrote some of Porter's lyrics, substituting British topical references for the original American
ones.[98][99]
.[101] Wodehouse's income was more
18. The average weekly industrial wage in Britain in 1938 was equal to £180 a year
than 500 times as much.
19. The two countries had not at that time reached the agreement that income tax is payable in one country or the other
,
but not in both.[102]
20. Among those to whom Wodehouse referred was Hugh Walpole. Wodehouse wrote to a friend, William T ownsend, "I
can't remember if I ever told you about meeting Hugh when I was at Oxford getting my D.Litt. I was staying with the
Vice-Chancellor at Magdalen and he blew inand spent the day. It was just after Hilaire Belloc had said that I was the
best living English writer. It was just a gag, of course, but it worried Hugh terribly. He said to me, 'Did you see what
Belloc said about you?' I said I had. 'I wonder why he said that.' 'I wonder ,' I said. Long silence. 'I can't imagine why
he said that,' said Hugh. I said I couldn't, either. Another long silence. 'It seems such an extraordinary thing to say!'
'Most extraordinary.' Long silence again. 'Ah,well,' said Hugh, having apparently found the solution, 'the old man's
getting very old.'"[108]
[110]
21. The Observer suggested that Jeeves should receive an honorary MA at the same time.
22. Wodehouse found the local countryside monotonous, and wrote, "There is a flat dullness about the countryside
which has led many a visitor to say 'If this is Upper Silesia, what mustLower Silesia be like?'."[120]
23. A third biographer, Benny Green, calls it "oneof the most scurrilous personal attacks in the history of English
journalism",[134] while McCrum describes it as "breathtakingly intemperate, a polemic unique in the annals of the
BBC".[135]
24. Mackenzie said he had "an old-fashioned prejudice against condemning a man unheard"; he added that "I feel more
odehouse's irresponsibility."[136]
disgusted by Mr Milne's morality than by Mr W
25. Neither Cussen's report or Matthew's decision was communicated to W
odehouse; they were not released to the
[148]
public until 1980.
26. The article was published in the July edition ofWindmill magazine.[153]
27. A 2013 drama produced by BBC 4 titledWodehouse in Exile looked at the circumstances surrounding Wodehouse's
[158]
wartime experience and the subsequent reaction.
28. He wrote to Bolton, "Apparently you have to write your show and get it composed and then give a series of auditions
[161]
to backers, instead of having the management line up a couple of stars and then get a show written for them."
29. Respectively, A Few Quick Ones (1958), Plum Pie (1966), Performing Flea (1953), Bring on the Girls! (1954, jointly
with Guy Bolton) and Over Seventy (1957).[164]
30. On both occasions the block was at the behest of the British ambassador to the US,
Sir Patrick Dean in 1967 and his
successor Lord Cromer in 1971.[172]
31. Alongside Wodehouse, Connolly listedlight music, Mickey Mouse, the Oxford Book of Verse and the works of Edgar
Wallace and Mary Webb.[208]
References
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138. "Letters to the Editor",The Times, 19 July 1941, p. 5
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142. Wodehouse, Performing Flea, Letter of 11 May 1942, p. 115
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144. Connolly, p. 93; and Phelps, p. 219
145. Green (1981), p. 202
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148. McCrum, p. 346
149. Ziegler, Philip. (2004) "Cooper, (Alfred) Duff, first Viscount Norwich (1890–1954)" (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/art
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aging in Pelham Grenville Wodehouse and George Bernard Shaw".Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 59
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182. Galligan, Edward L. "P.G. Wodehouse Master of Farce"(https://www.jstor.org/stable/27544522), Sewanee Review,
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183. Marsh, Pamela (21 December 1967). "The W
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in Pavlovski and Darga, p. 334
184. Lejeune, Anthony (11 December 1995). "Jeeves's England",National Review: 132, quoted in Pavlovski and Darga,
p. 333
185. Wodehouse and Donaldson, p. 144
186. McCrum, pp. 407 and 501
187. Jasen, p. 166
188. Joseph, Michael. "P.G. Wodehouse", The Bookman, June 1929, p. 151
189. McCrum, Robert. "Wodehouse and the English Language"(http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/wodehouse-an
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194. Levin, Bernard. "As Jeeves would have said: Perfect music, Sir",The Times, 18 February 1975, p. 14
195. Voorhees (1966), p. 165
196. Medcalf, Stephen (1976). "The Innocence of P.G. Wodehouse" in The Modern English Novel: The Reader, the Writer
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199. Voorhees (1966), pp. 166–167
200. "PG Wodehouse dies aged 93",The Guardian, 17 February 1975, p. 7
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Sources
Belloc, Hilaire (2012) [1939]. "Introduction".In P.G. Wodehouse. Weekend Wodehouse. London: Arrow Books.
ISBN 978-0-09-955814-9.
Bennett, Alan (2006) [2003].Untold Stories. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-22831-7.
Connolly, Joseph (1987) [1979]. P.G. Wodehouse. London: Thames and Hudson.ISBN 978-0-500-26027-2.
Donaldson, Frances (1983) [1982]. P.G. Wodehouse: A Biography. London: Futura. ISBN 978-0-7088-2356-9.
Easdale, Roderick (2014).The Novel Life of P.G. Wodehouse. Luton, UK: Andrews. ISBN 978-1-78333-828-3.
French, R.D.B. (1966).P.G. Wodehouse. Writers and Critics. Edinburgh and London:Oliver and Boyd.
OCLC 899087471.
Gaye, Freda (ed) (1967).Who's Who in the Theatre(fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons.
OCLC 5997224.
Green, Benny (1981). P.G. Wodehouse: A Literary Biography. London: Pavilion. ISBN 978-0-19-281390-9.
Green, Stanley (1980) [1976].Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-
80113-6.
Hart-Davis, Rupert (1997) [1952]. Hugh Walpole. Stroud, UK: Sutton. ISBN 978-0-7509-1491-8.
Jaggard, Geoffrey. Wooster's World. London: Macdonald. OCLC 2192308.
Jasen, David A. (1975).P.G. Wodehouse: A Portrait of a Master. London: Garnstone. ISBN 978-0-85511-190-8.
Leavis, F.R. (1968). Fiction and the Reading Public. London: Chatto and Windus.OCLC 800020590.
McCrum, Robert (2004). Wodehouse: A Life. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-89692-9.
McIlvaine, Eileen (1990).P.G. Wodehouse: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Checklist . New York: J. H.
Heineman. ISBN 978-0-87008-125-5.
Murphy, N.T.P. (1987) [1986]. In Search of Blandings. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.ISBN 978-0-14-010299-4.
Napper, Lawrence (2010). "British Gaiety".In Steven Cohan. The Sound of Musicals. London: British Film Institute.
ISBN 978-1-84457-347-9.
Orwell, George (2000).Essays. London: Penguin Books.ISBN 978-0-14-118306-0.
Pavlovski, Linda; Darga, Scott T., eds. (2001). "P.G. Wodehouse". Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism,Vol. 108.
Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-7876-4568-7.
Phelps, Barry (1992). P.G. Wodehouse: Man and Myth. London: Constable. ISBN 978-0-09-471620-9.
Sampson, George (1941).The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. OCLC 254919621.
Taves, Brian (Summer 2005). "P.G. Wodehouse and Hollywood".Southern California Quarterly. 87 (2): 123–169.
JSTOR 41172259. (subscription required)
Usborne, Richard (1976). Wodehouse at Work to the End. London: Barrie and Jenkins.ISBN 978-0-214-20211-7.
Voorhees, Richard (1966).P.G. Wodehouse. New York: Twayne. OCLC 1079135.
Voorhees, Richard (1985). "P.G. Wodehouse". In Stayley, Thomas F. Dictionary of Literary Biography: British
Novelists, 1890–1929: Traditionalists. Detroit: Gale. ISBN 978-0-8103-1712-3.
White, Laura M. (2009). "P.G. Wodehouse". In St. Pierre, Paul Matthew. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-
Century British Humorists. Detroit: Gale. ISBN 978-0-7876-8170-8.
Wind, Herbert Warren (1981). The World of P.G. Wodehouse. London: Hutchinson.ISBN 978-0-09-145670-2.
Wodehouse, P.G. (1957). Over Seventy. London: Herbert Jenkins.OCLC 163761062.
Wodehouse, P.G. (1953). Performing Flea: A Self-Portrait in Letters. London: Herbert Jenkins.OCLC 1231262.
Wodehouse, P.G. (1979) [1915]. Something Fresh. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.ISBN 978-0-14-005035-6.
Wodehouse, P.G. (1974). The World of Psmith. London: Barrie and Jenkins.ISBN 978-0-214-20000-7.
Wodehouse, P.G.; Frances Donaldson (ed) (1990). Yours, Plum: The Letters of P.G. Wodehouse. London:
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Wodehouse, P.G.; Sophie Ratcliffe (ed) (2013). P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters. London: Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-
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External links
P. G. Wodehouse at Curlie (based on DMOZ)
Works by P. G. Wodehouse at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about P. G. Wodehouse at Internet Archive
P. G. Wodehouse collection at The Virtual Library
Works by P. G. Wodehouse at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
The Wodehouse Society
The P. G. Wodehouse Society (UK)
Transcripts of Wodehouse's Berlin Broadcasts
Clarke, Gerald. "P. G. Wodehouse, The Art of Fiction No. 60". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2017-08-02.
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P. G.

Life and career

Reluctant banker; budding writer: 1900–08

Psmith, Blandings, Wooster and Jeeves: 1908–15

In May 1909 Wodehouse made his second visit to New Y

Wodehouse experimented with different genres of fiction in these

In 1936 Wodehouse created the last of his regular cast of principal

Other leading literary figures who admired W

Second World War: internment and broadcasts

On 21 June 1941, while he was in the middle of playing a game of cricket,

Aftermath: reactions and investigation

The Wodehouses remained in Germany until September 1943, when Allied

American exile: 1946–75

"I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar on the teaspoon."

Reception and reputation

Notes, references and sources

5. Wodehouse primarily wrote under the name P

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P

This page was last edited on 15 October 2018, at 08:42(UTC).

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