P g wodehouse biography of william

Wodehouse in It is highly recommended. InRichard J. Voorhees, of Purdue University, wrote P. Wodehouse for the Twayne's English Authors Series. Wodehouse Plum would sense a nifty in the making here — see his preface to the novel Summer Lightning about the best one hundred books titled Summer Lightning. Edwards also has the distinction of being an expert on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — a favorite author and friend of Plum's.

Somewhat farther afield, Dr. French's P. Wodehouse appear in the "Writers and Critics" series. All five of these books provide well-reasoned critical and linguistic insights into what makes us laugh when reading the works of Wodehouse. Two other notes of interest may be added. It is recommended. Mikes is analytical in a very political and class-conscious way.

It is a view of Wodehouse that suffers from a curiously pretentious objection to, well, Mikes's presumed pretentiousness of Wodehouse. One of the hardest questions about Wodehouse, surprisingly, is how many books did he write? Plum reused materials shamelessly and the same, or a very nearly identical, book would have a very different, or sometimes rather similar, title on each side of the Atlantic.

Plays would become books and vice versa. Subsequent re-issuing publishers would shamelessly tack on a new title. But if you choose to delve into the question, and we in TWS do delve, then you need Wodehouse bibliographies.

P g wodehouse biography of william: Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE,

Fortunately there are a couple of good ones. The ever valuable David A. Wodehouse first edition Second Revised and Expanded edition is a real treasure trove, not just of bibliographic detail, but with character lists, and descriptions of the books, stories, and their characters. The bible of bibliography is P. Sherby, and James H.

Heineman and published by Mr. Heineman's Press. It is also notable for the wonderful illustrations by Peter Van Straaten. It was updated by the International Wodehouse Association, under the direction of its able President, Tony Ring, in Doubtless as a result of years of subsequent research and the most recent amazing work of the Globe Reclamation Project, it is about due for another Addendum.

But for the solid, factual not to say unerring meat-and-potatoes details of Plum's publishing history, the Comprehensive Bibliography can not be beat! A special word is merited about this endeavor, the P. The strength in the books lay in the marvellous comic talent he displayed in writing the various characters and dialogue. Each character seemed a humorous exaggeration of real-life characters that we all know.

Wodehouse books had an innocence and lightness, he never ventured into serious crime or sexual relations; it was a world of safety and escapism. When writing the Jeeves and Wooster series, Wodehouse said that he tried to imagine all characters were like paid actors, and only brought a character into the scene if he felt it was merited. Wodehouse worked very hard in planning books his books.

He would first write a detailed plotline and then build a story and the humorous interactions around it. At his peak, he could complete a novel in around three months; this rate later slowed to around six months. Commenting on his own efforts to produce a book he writes with customary self-deprecation.

P g wodehouse biography of william: P.G. Wodehouse writes to an old

Just prior to the Allied armies evacuation he was offered the one remaining seat on a RAF plane, but did not wish to leave behind his wife and adopted daughter. He was sent to a prison at the Citadel of Huy and then to an internment camp in Upper Silesia. During the war, the Germans allowed him a typewriter, and he secretly sent word to the families of Canadian prisoners of war.

As he was over 60, he was released on the condition that he remain in Germany for the duration of the war. While in New York he saw sufficient of the ways of the street gangs, the political corruption and the extensive bribery in the police force to inspire his two main novels representing political or social commentary: Psmith, Journalist and A Gentleman of Leisure.

She came complete with a daughter, Leonora, whom Plum was to adore and adopt legally. A plaque in the body of the church today commemorates the wedding. Plum and Ethel were happily married for over 60 years. Ethel, who had been born inoutlived Plum by nine years and died, aged 99, in He spent most of the war in the United States and tried again to join up at an allied forces recruitment centre.

Again he was rejected. He made a substantial contribution to its pages for five years, having as many as five pieces in any individual issue. His most important role was as the paper's dramatic critic, and it is reputedly while attending the opening night of Very Good Eddie that he met Guy Bolton and came across Jerome Kern once more.

Written in the US, it was offered as a serial to, and accepted by, the Saturday Evening Post, the most prestigious weekly journal in the United States. His next 27 novels were all serialised in the US and most of them in the UK as well before book publication. Something New was significant for another reason: it represented the first appearance of Lord Emsworth, Freddie Threepwood and Blandings Castle.

The first story in which Jeeves appeared was Extricating Young Gussie, in which he had just two lines and Bertie did not have a surname. My Man Jeeves, a book of eight stories including four about Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, was published inand three further collections, wholly consisting of Bertie and Jeeves episodes, came out inand In the first two novels, Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves appeared, and another nine would follow at regular intervals.

Wodehouse only wrote two more short stories featuring this pair after that. His early days at Emsworth provide good examples. Many place names in the Emsworth locality were given to characters in his books, especially in the Blandings series, including Stockheath, Bosham, Warblington, Hayling and Havant. Some of the houses he stayed at in the area were used in a similar way Threepwood, Rogate Lodge.

The demise of the Emsworth oyster beds through pollution was reflected in the short story Something to Worry About. At one point in he was involved in five shows appearing simultaneously on Broadway, a record not matched by an Englishman until Andrew Lloyd-Webber some 75 years later. In all he was to write more than lyrics, providing all the songs for 11 shows, and contributing to 20 others.

He helped write the book libretto for 17 of them, generally with Guy Bolton. Plum himself was a keen golfer, with a handicap never lower than the mid-teens, and an ambition when driving which aimed at length rather than accuracy. I spent my golfing life out of bounds. I never even count my strokes. I know I can never beat anyone who putts along down the middle.

All the same I get more fun out of my golf than any man I know when I am hitting my drives. The first recorded translations were into Swedish in and Finnish in In total his works appear in well over twenty languages, those with most titles being Swedish, Dutch and Italian. One unexpected result was that his tax position became exceptionally complicated.

There were no provisions as there are today to prevent someone having to pay full tax to more than one government on the same income. Wodehouse never returned to England. From until his death he lived in the US; he took US citizenship in while retaining his British one. Wodehouse was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between and He 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 Wodehouse 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 p g wodehouse biography of william literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared to 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. 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.

The boy was baptised at the Church of St Nicolas, Guildford[ 3 ] and was named after his godfather, Pelham von Donop. I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it but a small silver mug which I lost in Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was raised by a Chinese amah nursealongside his elder brothers Philip Peveril John — and Ernest Armine — The boys' p g wodehouse biographies of william returned to Hong Kong and became virtual strangers to their sons.

Such an arrangement was then normal for middle-class families based in the colonies. In the brothers were sent to a dame-school in Croydonwhere they spent three years. Peveril was then found to have a "weak chest"; [ 14 ] sea air was prescribed, and the three boys were moved to Elizabeth College on the island of Guernsey. 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 a "penitentiary Cheney Court, Ditteridgea large 17th-century house near Box in Wiltshire, [ 16 ] was one of Wodehouse's homes while his parents were living in Hong Kong. His grandmother died inafter which he was largely brought up by his aunts, including the writer Mary Bathurst Deane[ 17 ] the original of Bertie Wooster's fictional Aunt Agatha.

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 BiographyIain 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, Blandingsand other stories.

The boys had fifteen uncles, four of whom were clergymen. Sproat writes that they inspired Wodehouse's "pious but fallible curates, vicars, and bishops, of which he wrote with friendly irreverence but without mockery". He has the most distorted ideas about wit and humour; he draws over his books and examination papers in the most distressing way and writes foolish rhymes in other people's books.

Notwithstanding he has a genuine interest in literature and can often talk with enthusiasm and good sense about it. At the age of twelve into his great joy, Wodehouse was able to follow his brother Armine to Dulwich College.

P g wodehouse biography of william: Born in Guildford, the

He loved the camaraderie, distinguished himself at cricket, rugby and boxing, and was a good, if not consistently diligent, student. Gilkesa respected classicistwho was a strong influence on Wodehouse. Wodehouse's six years at Dulwich were among the happiest of his life: "To me the years between and were like heaven. The biographer Barry Phelps writes that Wodehouse "loved the college as much as he loved anything or anybody".

Wodehouse expected to follow Armine to the University of Oxfordbut the family's finances took a turn for the worse at the crucial moment. Ernest Wodehouse had retired inand 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".

He was unsuited to it and found the work baffling and uncongenial. He later wrote a humorous account of his experiences at the bank, [ 31 ] 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. Inwith the help of a former Dulwich master, William Beach ThomasWodehouse secured an appointment—at first temporary and later permanent—writing for The Globe ' s popular "By the Way" column.

He held the post until Between the publication of The Pothunters and that of Mike inWodehouse wrote eight novels and co-wrote another two. The critic R. French writes that, of Wodehouse's work from this period, almost all that deserves to survive is the school fiction. 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 he had earned enough to do so.

He noted in his diary: "In New York gathering experience. Worth many guineas in the future but none for the moment. After that trip to New York I was a man who counted. My income rose like a rocketing pheasant. There are pleasant little spots my heart is fixed on, Down at Parkhurst or at Portland on the sea, And some put up at Holloway and Brixton, But Pentonville is good enough for me.

Wodehouse's other new venture in was writing for the stage. Towards the end of the year the librettist Owen Hall invited him to contribute an additional lyric for a musical comedy Sergeant Brue. Although it made little impact on its first publication, the novel Love Among the Chickens contained what French calls the author's first original comic creation: Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.

The two collaborated between and on two books, two music hall sketches, and a play, Brother Alfred. In early the actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to become resident lyricist at the Aldwych Theatreto 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 show-stopper and was briefly the most popular song in London. Wodehouse's early period as a writer came to an end in with the serialisation of The Lost Lambspublished the following year in book form as the second half of the novel Mike.

He sold many more stories, but none of the American publications offered a permanent relationship and guaranteed income. Between then and the outbreak of the First World War in he revisited America frequently.

P g wodehouse biography of william: The Story of William.

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. 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". Wodehouse experimented with different genres of fiction in these years; Psmith, Journalistmixing comedy with social comment on slum landlords and racketeers, was published in The Blandings Castle stories, set in an English stately 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 Galahadthe demands of his domineering sisters and super-efficient secretaries, and anything detrimental to his prize sow, the Empress of Blandings.

A third milestone in Wodehouse's life came towards the end of his old songwriting partner Jerome Kern introduced him to the writer Guy Boltonwho became Wodehouse's closest friend and a regular collaborator. The show was successful, but they thought the song lyrics weak and invited Wodehouse to join them on its successor. This was Miss Springtimewhich ran for performances—a good run by the standards of the day.

Unlike his original model, Gilbert, Wodehouse preferred the music to be written first, fitting his words into the melodies. Wodehouse had made any real assault on the intelligence of the song-listening public. 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, [ 83 ] and Mr Mulliner, telling his particularly tall tales to fellow patrons of the bar at the Angler's Rest.

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. Though never a naturally gregarious man, Wodehouse was more sociable in the s than at other periods. Donaldson lists among those with whom he was on friendly terms writers including A.

Phillips Oppenheimand stage performers including George Grossmith Jr. There had been films of Wodehouse stories sincewhen A Gentleman of Leisure was based on his novel of the same name. Further screen adaptations of his books were made between then and[ n 15 ] but it was not until that Wodehouse went to Hollywood where Bolton was working as a highly paid writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer MGM.