P. G. Wodehouse

English novelist, short-story writer, and lyricist

• Born: October 15, 1881
• Birthplace: Guildford, Surrey, England
• Died: February 14, 1975
• Place of death: Southampton, Long Island, New York

Biography

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is a name that conjures up the most lighthearted and sunniest of comic worlds described by a master stylist of the English language. Born on October 15, 1881, in Guildford, England, he was the third son of a British civil servant serving in Hong Kong. To give their children an English education, his parents sent them to England; there they attended various boarding schools and visited relatives during the summer holidays. Wodehouse’s upbringing explains the relative scarcity of parental figures and the corresponding preponderance of aunts in his most popular works, especially in those featuring Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. Bertie is firmly ruled by the strength of will of his female relatives, whether as likable as Aunt Dahlia or as terrifying as Aunt Agatha—both characters based on Wodehouse’s own aunts, undoubtedly an affectionate tribute to these important figures from his childhood.

Wodehouse, who early acquired the lifelong nickname “Plum,” claimed that he started writing stories when he was five years old. His father, however, wanted his son to have a more secure future and obtained a position for Wodehouse as a clerk in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. To please his father, Wodehouse remained with the bank for two years, all the while writing short pieces for magazines. Then he landed a much more congenial job writing a column for a newspaper, the Globe, and in 1902 became a full-time writer. In 1904 he was asked to write lyrics for a new play, and thereupon launched on another long career, as a lyricist.

Wodehouse traveled to the United States a few times and was particularly impressed with the possibilities there in 1909, when he sold two short stories on the day he arrived. On his third visit, in 1914, he met and married Ethel Rowley, an Englishwoman. Writing under a number of pen names, Wodehouse became a theater critic for Vanity Fair. Over the years, with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton, Wodehouse was part of a legendary trio that produced several successful Broadway shows. In his literary biography of Wodehouse, Benny Green argues that Wodehouse’s contribution to fifty-two dramatic works over a period of fifty years and his collaboration with other Broadway greats, such as Cole Porter, Florenz Ziegfeld, and George and Ira Gershwin, helped shape Wodehouse’s prose fiction.

A tragic incident that reveals the nature, appeal, and, for some critics, the problem with Wodehouse as a writer occurred during World War II. Wodehouse was already established as a master comic stylist and had created the major characters who would continue to be the mainstay of his work: Psmith, who first appeared in the schoolboy stories and later as an adult; Ukridge, an impoverished but creative zany; Mulliner, the narrator of Hollywood stories; two elderly earls—the bouncy and youthful Lord Ickenham and the dreamy but dedicated pig breeder Lord Emsworth; the dim-witted young men of the Drones Club; and the most famous Drone Club member, Bertie Wooster, and his stupendously well-read and intelligent personal valet, Jeeves. Wodehouse, who by all accounts was an extremely good-natured, innocent, and apolitical man, found himself a prisoner of the Germans during the occupation of France, where he and his wife were living at the time. He agreed to a request from some American companies to tape broadcasts to his concerned fans in the United States. Wodehouse described his unpleasant experiences in the humorous style so peculiarly his own, ridiculing the Germans and making light of his own miseries. He was branded a traitor by those who never heard the broadcasts but assumed that his agreeing to do them at all was suspect. While those who heard or read the broadcasts stoutly defended him, the storm of protest hurt Wodehouse. Though completely cleared of any charges, Wodehouse moved to the United States permanently in 1947, where he continued to write in much the same fashion as before the war.

The unworldly innocence apparent in this incident characterizes Wodehouse’s work. As Richard J. Voorhees notes, Wodehouse was born in the Victorian Age, came to manhood in the Edwardian, and continued to write, until the age of ninety-three, as if he still lived in that earlier time. His enduring appeal lies not only in the fantasy world he created but also in his careful and imaginative use of the full resources of the English language.

Author Works

Long Fiction:

The Pothunters, 1902

A Prefect’s Uncle, 1903

The Gold Bat, 1904

The Head of Kay’s, 1905

Love among the Chickens, 1906

Not George Washington, 1907 (with Herbert Westbrook)

The White Feather, 1907

Mike: A Public School Story, 1909 (also known as Enter Psmith, Mike at Wrykyn, and Mike and Psmith)

The Swoop: How Clarence Saved England, 1909

Psmith in the City: A Sequel to “Mike,” 1910

A Gentleman of Leisure, 1910 (also known as The Intrusion of Jimmy)

The Prince and Betty, 1912

The Little Nugget, 1913

Something Fresh, 1915 (also known as Something New)

Psmith, Journalist, 1915 (revision of The Prince and Betty)

Uneasy Money, 1916

Piccadilly Jim, 1917

Their Mutual Child, 1919 (also known as The Coming of Bill)

A Damsel in Distress, 1919

The Little Warrior, 1920 (also known as Jill the Reckless)

Indiscretions of Archie, 1921

The Girl on the Boat, 1922 (also known as Three Men and a Maid)

The Adventures of Sally, 1922 (also known as Mostly Sally)

The Inimitable Jeeves, 1923 (also known as Jeeves)

Leave It to Psmith, 1923

Bill the Conqueror: His Invasion of England in the Springtime, 1924

Sam the Sudden, 1925 (also known as Sam in the Suburbs)

The Small Bachelor, 1927

Money for Nothing, 1928

Summer Lightning, 1929 (also known as Fish Preferred and Fish Deferred)

Very Good, Jeeves, 1930

Big Money, 1931

If I Were You, 1931

Doctor Sally, 1932

Hot Water, 1932

Heavy Weather, 1933

Thank You, Jeeves, 1934

Right Ho, Jeeves, 1934 (also known as Brinkley Manor: A Novel About Jeeves)

Trouble down at Tudsleigh, 1935

The Luck of the Bodkins, 1935

Laughing Gas, 1936

Summer Moonshine, 1937

The Code of the Woosters, 1938

Uncle Fred in the Springtime, 1939

Quick Service, 1940

Money in the Bank, 1942

Joy in the Morning, 1946

Full Moon, 1947

Spring Fever, 1948

Uncle Dynamite, 1948

The Mating Season, 1949

The Old Reliable, 1951

Barmy in Wonderland, 1952 (pb. in U.S. as Angel Cake)

Pigs Have Wings, 1952

Ring for Jeeves, 1953 (also known as The Return of Jeeves)

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, 1954 (also known as Bertie Wooster Sees It Through)

French Leave, 1956

Something Fishy, 1957 (also known as The Butler Did It)

Cocktail Time, 1958

Jeeves in the Offing, 1960 (also known as How Right You Are, Jeeves)

Ice in the Bedroom, 1961

Service with a Smile, 1961

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, 1963

Biffen’s Millions, 1964 (also known as Frozen Assets)

Galahad at Blandings, 1965 (also known as The Brinkmanship of Galahad Threepwood: A Blandings Castle Novel)

Company for Henry, 1967 (also known as The Purloined Paperweight)

Do Butlers Burgle Banks?, 1968

A Pelican at Blandings, 1969 (also known as No Nudes Is Good Nudes)

The Girl in Blue, 1970

Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, 1971 (also known as Much Obliged, Jeeves)

Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin, 1972 (also known as The Plot That Thickened)

Bachelors Anonymous, 1973

The Cat-Nappers: A Jeeves and Bertie Story, 1974 (also known as Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen)

Sunset at Blandings, 1977

Short Fiction:

Tales of St. Austin’s, 1903

The Man Upstairs, and Other Stories, 1914

The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories, 1917

My Man Jeeves, 1919

The Clicking of Cuthbert, 1922 (also known as Golf Without Tears)

Ukridge, 1924 (also known as He Rather Enjoyed It)

Carry on, Jeeves!, 1925

The Heart of a Goof, 1926 (also known as Divots)

Meet Mr. Mulliner, 1927

Mr. Mulliner Speaking, 1929

Jeeves Omnibus, 1931 (revised as The World of Jeeves, 1967)

Mulliner Nights, 1933

Blandings Castle and Elsewhere, 1935 (also known as Blandings Castle)

Mulliner Omnibus, 1935 (revised as The World of Mr. Mulliner, 1972)

Young Men in Spats, 1936

Lord Emsworth and Others, 1937 (also known as The Crime Wave at Blandings)

Dudley Is Back to Normal, 1940

Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets, 1940

Nothing Serious, 1950

Selected Stories, 1958

A Few Quick Ones, 1959

Plum Pie, 1966

The Golf Omnibus: Thirty-one Golfing Short Stories, 1973

The World of Psmith, 1974

Drama:

A Gentleman of Leisure, pr. 1911 (with John Stapleton)

Oh, Lady! Lady!!, pr. 1918

The Play’s the Thing, pr. 1926 (adaptation of Ferenc Molnár)

Good Morning, Bill, pr. 1927 (adaptation of László Fodor)

A Damsel in Distress, pr. 1928 (with Ian Hay)

Baa, Baa Black Sheep, pr. 1929 (with Hay)

Candlelight, pr. 1929 (adaptation of Siegfried Geyer)

Leave It to Psmith, pr. 1930 (adaptation of his novel with Hay)

Anything Goes, pr. 1934 (with Guy Bolton and others)

Carry On, Jeeves, pb. 1956 (adaptation with Bolton)

Nonfiction:

William Tell Told Again, 1904 (with additional fictional material)

Louder and Funnier, 1932

Bring on the Girls: The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy, with Pictures to Prove It, 1953 (with Guy Bolton)

Performing Flea: A Self-Portrait in Letters, 1953 (revised as Author! Author!, 1962; W. Townend, editor)

America, I Like You, 1956 (revised as Over Seventy: An Autobiography with Digressions, 1957)

Yours, Plum: The Letters of P.G. Wodehouse, 1988 (Frances Donaldson, editor)

Edited Texts:

A Century of Humour, 1934

The Best of Modern Humor, 1952 (with Scott Meredith)

The Week-End Book of Humor, 1952 (with Meredith)

A Carnival of Modern Humor, 1967 (with Meredith)

Bibliography

Donaldson, Frances. P. G. Wodehouse: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1982.

Green, Benny. P. G. Wodehouse: A Literary Biography. New York: Rutledge Press, 1981. This very useful study, arranged chronologically, traces the connections between Wodehouse’s personal experiences and his fictional creations. Illustrations, a chronology, notes, a bibliography, and an index are included.

Hall, Robert A., Jr. The Comic Style of P. G. Wodehouse. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1974. Provides a discussion of three types of Wodehouse’s stories, including school tales and juvenilia, romances and farces, and the various sagas. The analysis of Wodehouse’s narrative techniques and linguistic characteristics is indispensable for anyone interested in understanding his style. Contains an index and a bibliography.

Phelps, Barry. P. G. Wodehouse: Man and Myth. London: Constable, 1992. In this sympathetic biography, Phelps provides an unusual number of useful appendices, including a Wodehouse chronology, family tree, and bibliography.

Sproat, Iain. Wodehouse at War. New Haven, Conn.: Ticknor & Fields, 1981. This volume is necessary to those studying the sad war events that clouded Wodehouse’s life and to those interested in exploring the individual psychology that produced such comic delight. Sproat, a politician as well as a fan, vindicates Wodehouse in the infamous Nazi broadcasts, which are reprinted here. Includes appendices of documents in the case.

Usborne, Richard. After Hours with P. G. Wodehouse. London: Hutchinson, 1991. A collection of entertaining pieces on Wodehouse’s life and death, written somewhat in the spirit of Wodehouse himself.

Usborne, Richard. Wodehouse at Work to the End. 1961. Rev. ed. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1976. Includes individual chapters on Wodehouse’s major series characters, helpful appendices of lists of his books, plays, and films, and an index. For the diehard fan, each chapter is followed by a brief section called “Images,” with humorous quotations from the works. The introduction refers to other secondary sources.

Voorhees, Richard J. P. G. Wodehouse. New York: Twayne, 1966. An excellent introductory volume on Wodehouse, with chapters on his life, his public school stories, his early novels, the development of his romantic and comic novels, a description of the Wodehouse world, and a discussion of the place of that world in British literature. A chronology, notes and references, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources are provided.

Wodehouse, P. G. Yours, Plum: The Letters of P. G. Wodehouse. New York: James H. Heineman, 1993. Mainly addressed to a small group of close friends and Wodehouse’s stepdaughter Leonora, the letters cover all aspects of Wodehouse’s life and career. The long section in which he discusses his writing gives fascinating insight into an author at work