Everything about P G Wodehouse totally explained
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse,
KBE (
15 October 1881 –
14 February 1975) was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 30 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in
France and the
United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of
prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.
An acknowledged master of
English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as
Hilaire Belloc,
Evelyn Waugh and
Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as
Douglas Adams,
Salman Rushdie and
Terry Pratchett.
Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the
Jeeves and
Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty
musical comedies. He worked with
Cole Porter on the
musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with
Jerome Kern and
Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song "Bill" in Kern's
Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the
Gershwin -
Romberg musical
Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with
Rudolf Friml on a musical version of
The Three Musketeers (1928).
Early life
Wodehouse, called "Plum" by most family and friends, was born prematurely to Eleanor Wodehouse (née Deane) whilst she was visiting
Guildford. His father Henry Ernest Wodehouse (1845–1929) was a British judge in
Hong Kong. The Wodehouse family had been settled in
Norfolk for many centuries. Wodehouse's great-grandfather Reverend Philip Wodehouse was the second son of
Sir Armine Wodehouse, 5th Baronet, whose eldest son
John Wodehouse, 1st Baron Wodehouse, was the ancestor of the
Earls of Kimberley. His
godfather was
Pelham von Donop after whom he was named.
When he was just 3 years old, Wodehouse was brought back to England and placed in the care of a nanny. He attended various boarding schools and, between the ages of three and 15 years, saw his parents for barely 6 months in total. (
McCrum, 2004, pp 14-15) Wodehouse grew very close to his brother, who shared his love for art. Wodehouse filled the voids in his life by writing relentlessly. He spent quite a few of his school holidays with one aunt or another; it has been speculated that this gave him a healthy horror of the "gaggle of aunts", reflected in
Bertie Wooster's formidable aunts
Agatha and
Dahlia, as well as
Lady Constance Keeble's tyranny over her many nieces and nephews in the
Blandings Castle series.
Wodehouse was educated at
Dulwich College, where the library is now named after him, but his anticipated progression to university was stymied by family financial problems. Subsequently he worked for the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London (now known as HSBC) for two years, though he was never interested in banking as a career. He wrote part-time while working in the bank, eventually proving successful enough to take up writing as a full-time profession. He was a journalist with
The Globe (a defunct English newspaper) for some years before moving to New York, where he worked for a time as theatre critic of
The New Yorker, collaborated with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern on several musical comedies, and began publishing short stories and novels. In the 1930s, he'd two brief stints as a screenwriter in
Hollywood, where he claimed he was greatly over-paid. Many of his novels were also serialised in magazines such as
The Saturday Evening Post and
The Strand, which also paid well.
Wodehouse married Ethel Wayman in
1914, gaining a stepdaughter, Leonora. He had no biological children, perhaps owing to having contracted
mumps as a young man.
Life in France
Although Wodehouse and his novels are considered quintessentially English, from 1914 onward he shared his time between England and the United States. In 1934, he took up residence in France, to avoid double taxation on his earnings by the tax authorities in Britain and the US. He was also profoundly uninterested in politics and world affairs. When
World War II broke out in 1939 he remained at his seaside home in
Le Touquet,
France, instead of returning to England, apparently failing to recognise the seriousness of the conflict. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940 and interned by them for a year, first in
Belgium, then at Tost (now
Toszek) in
Upper Silesia (now in
Poland). He is recorded as saying, "If this is Upper Silesia, one wonders what Lower Silesia must be like..."
While at Tost, he entertained his fellow prisoners with witty dialogues. After being released from internment, a few months short of his 60th birthday, he used these dialogues as a basis for a series of radio broadcasts made of his own free will, but many assumed that they were made under German persuasion. Wartime England was in no mood for light-hearted banter, however, and the broadcasts led to many accusations of
collaboration with the
Nazis and even treason. Some libraries banned his books. Foremost among his critics was
A. A. Milne, author of the
Winnie the Pooh books; Wodehouse got some revenge by creating a ridiculous character named Timothy Bobbin, who starred in parodies of some of Milne's children's poetry. Among Wodehouse's defenders were
Evelyn Waugh and
George Orwell. An investigation by the British security service
MI5 concluded that Wodehouse was naive and foolish but not a traitor.
The criticism led Wodehouse and his wife to move permanently to New York. Apart from Leonora, who died during Wodehouse's internment in Germany, they'd no children. He became an American citizen in 1955 and never returned to his homeland, spending the remainder of his life in
Remsenburg, Long Island.
Later life
He was made a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) shortly before his death at the age of 93. It is widely believed that the honour wasn't given earlier because of lingering resentment about the German broadcasts. In a
BBC interview he said that he'd no ambitions left now that he'd been knighted and there was a waxwork of him in
Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. His doctor advised him not to travel to London to be knighted, and his wife later received the award on his behalf from the British consul.
In 2000, the
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize was established and named in honour of PG Wodehouse and awards an annual prize for the finest example in the UK of comic writing.
Writing style
Wodehouse took a modest attitude to his own works. In
Over Seventy (1957) he wrote:
» "I go in for what is known in the trade as 'light writing' and those who do that – humorists they're sometimes called – are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at."
Literary tastes and influence
In the same article, Wodehouse names some contemporary humorists whom he held in high regard. These include Frank Sullivan,
A. P. Herbert, and
Alex Atkinson. Two essays in
Tales of St. Austin’s satirize modern literary criticism; “The
Tom Brown Question” is a parody of
Homeric Analysts, and “Notes” criticizes both classical and English critics, with an ironic exception for those explicating the meaning of
Browning. In “Work,” Wodehouse calls the claim that “
Virgil is hard” a “a shallow falsehood,” but notes that “
Aeschylus, on the other hand, is a demon.”
Shakespeare and
Tennyson were also obvious influences; their works were the only books Wodehouse brought with him in his internment. Wodehouse also seems to have enjoyed the traditional English
thriller; in the 1960s he gave important praise for the debut novels of
Gavin Lyall and
George MacDonald Fraser. In later life, he read mysteries by
Ngaio Marsh and
Rex Stout, and unfailingly watched the
soap opera The Edge of Night.
Characters
Wodehouse's characters, however, were not always popular with the establishment, notably the foppish foolishness of
Bertie Wooster. Papers released by the
Public Record Office have disclosed that when P. G. Wodehouse was recommended in 1967 for a
Companion of Honour, Sir Patrick Dean, the British ambassador in Washington, argued that it "would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which we're doing our best to eradicate."
Wodehouse's characters are often eccentric, with peculiar attachments, such as to pigs (
Lord Emsworth), newts (
Gussie Fink-Nottle), or socks (
Archibald Mulliner). His "mentally negligible" good-natured characters invariably make their lot worse by their half-witted schemes to improve a bad situation.
Wodehouse's aristocrats, however, embody many of the comic attributes that characterize buffoons. In many cases the classic eccentricities of Wodehouse's upperclass give rise to plot complications.
Relatives, especially aunts and uncles, are commonly depicted with an exaggerated power to help or impede marriage or financial prospects, or simply to make life miserable. Friends are often more a trouble than a comfort in Wodehouse stories: the main character is typically being placed in a most painful situation just to please a friend. Antagonists (particularly rivals in love) are frequently terrifying and just as often get their come-uppance in a delicious fashion.
Policemen and
magistrates are typically portrayed as threatening, yet easy to fool, often through the simple expedient of giving a false name. A recurring motif is the theft of policemen's helmets.
In a manner going back to the stock characters of Roman comedy (such as
Plautus), Wodehouse's servants are frequently far cleverer than their masters. This is quintessentially true with
Jeeves, who always pulls Bertie Wooster out of the direst scrapes. It recurs elsewhere, such as the efficient (though despised)
Baxter, secretary to the befogged
Lord Emsworth.
Plots
Although his plots are on the surface formulaic, Wodehouse's genius lies in the tangled layers of comedic complications that the characters must endure to reach the invariable happy ending. Typically, a relative or friend makes some demand that forces a character into a bizarre situation that seems impossible to recover from, only to resolve itself in a clever and satisfying finale. The layers pile up thickly in the longer works, with a character getting into multiple dangerous situations by mid-story. An outstanding example of this is
The Code of the Woosters where most of the chapters have an essential plot point reversed in the last sentence, catapulting the characters forward into greater diplomatic disasters.
Engagements are a common theme in Wodehouse stories. A man may be unable to become engaged to the woman he loves due to some impediment. Just as often, he becomes unwillingly, or even accidentally, engaged to a woman he doesn't love and needs to find some back-door way out other than breaking it off directly (which goes against a gentleman's code of honour). A case in point is Freddie in
Something Fresh, where his engagement to Miss Peters apparently broke off after she eloped with George Emerson. A very sad situation of a girl choosing a spirited man instead of her dim witted fiancé was cleverly made light hearted by showing how Freddie couldn't care less, as he was more interested in meeting the revered writer of detective stories, Ashe Marson, and so on.
Assumed identities and resulting confusion are particularly common in the Blandings books.
Gambling often plays a large role in Wodehouse plots, typically with someone manipulating the outcome of the wager.
Another subject which features strongly in Wodehouse's plots is
alcohol, and many plots revolve around the tipsiness of a major character. It is clear that Wodehouse himself was fond of a tipple, and he enumerated what many people consider as the definitive list of hangovers: the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie. Furthermore, he makes several references to a drink called the "May Queen", described by
Uncle Fred as "any good dry champagne, to which is added liqueur brandy, armagnac, kummel, yellow chartreuse, and old stout, to taste", which inspires several characters to acts of daring, such as proposing to their true loves.
Writings
- The Blandings Castle stories (later dubbed "the Blandings Castle Saga" by Wodehouse), about the upper-class inhabitants of the fictional rural Blandings Castle. Includes the eccentric Lord Emsworth, obsessed by his prize-winning pig, the "Empress of Blandings", and at one point by his equally prize-winning pumpkin ("Blandings' Hope", but, mockingly, "Percy" to Emsworth's unappreciative second son Freddie Threepwood).
The Drones Club stories, about the mishaps of certain members of a raucous social club for London's idle rich. Born in the Jeeves stories, it became its own informal series of short stories, mostly featuring club members Freddie Widgeon or Bingo Little, plus a cast of recurrent bit players such as Club millionaire Oofy Prosser.
The Golf and Oldest Member stories. They are built around one of Wodehouse's passions, the sport of golf, which all characters involved consider the only important pursuit in life. The Oldest Member of the golf course clubhouse tells most of them.
The Jeeves and Wooster stories, narrated by the wealthy, scatterbrained Bertie Wooster. A number of stories and novels that recount the improbable and unfortunate situations in which he and his friends find themselves and the manner in which his ingenious valet Jeeves is always able to extricate them. Collectively called "the Jeeves stories", or "Jeeves and Wooster", they're Wodehouse's most famous. The Jeeves stories are a valuable compendium of pre-World War II English slang in use, perhaps most closely mirrored in American literature, although at a different social level, by the work of Damon Runyon.
The Mr Mulliner stories, about a long-winded pub raconteur who tells outrageous stories about his family, all surnamed Mulliner. His sometimes unwilling listeners are always identified solely by their drinks, for example, a "Hot Scotch and Lemon" or a "Double Whisky and Splash".
The Psmith stories, about an ingenious jack-of-all-trades with a charming, exaggeratedly refined manner. The final Psmith story, Leave it to Psmith, overlaps the Blandings stories in that Psmith works for Lord Emsworth, lives for a time at Blandings Castle, and becomes a friend of Freddie Threepwood.
The School stories, which launched Wodehouse's career with their comparative realism. They are often located at the fictional public schools of St. Austin's or Wrykyn.
The Ukridge stories, about the charming but unprincipled Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, always looking to enlarge his income through the reluctant assistance of his friend in his schemes.
The Uncle Fred stories, about the eccentric Earl of Ickenham. Whenever he can escape his wife's chaperonage, he likes to spread what he calls "sweetness and light" and others are likely to call chaos. His escapades, always involving impersonations of some sort, are usually told from the viewpoint of his nephew and reluctant companion Reginald "Pongo" Twistleton. Several times he performs his "art" at Blandings Castle.
Adaptations
"One great advantage in being a historian to a man like Jeeves is that his mere personality prevents one selling one's artistic soul for gold. In recent years I've had lucrative offers for his services from theatrical managers, motion-picture magnates, the proprietors of one or two widely advertised commodities, and even the editor of the comic supplement of an American newspaper, who wanted him for a "comic strip". But, tempting though the terms were, it only needed Jeeves deprecating cough and his murmured "I would scarcely advocate it, sir," to put the jack under my better nature. Jeeves knows his place, and it's between the covers of a book." (from Wodehouse's introduction to the compilation The World of Jeeves, 1967)
A Damsel in Distress was adapted in the 1937 film starring Fred Astaire, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Joan Fontaine. A 1962 film adaptation of The Girl On The Boat
starred Norman Wisdom, Millicent Martin and Richard Briers.
Both the Blandings and Jeeves stories have been adapted as BBC television series: the Jeeves series has been adapted twice, once in the 1960s (for the BBC), with the title World of Wooster, starring Ian Carmichael as Bertie Wooster, and Dennis Price as Jeeves—and again in the 1990s (by Granada Television for ITV), with the title Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie as Bertie and Stephen Fry as Jeeves. David Niven and Arthur Treacher also starred as Bertie and Jeeves, respectively, in a short 1930s film that was a very loose adaptation of Thank You, Jeeves, and Treacher played Jeeves without Bertie in an original sequel, Step Lively, Jeeves.
In 1975, Andrew Lloyd Webber made a musical, originally titled Jeeves. In 1996, it was rewritten as the more successful By Jeeves, which made it to Broadway, and a performance recorded as a video film, also shown on TV.
A version of Heavy Weather was filmed by the BBC in 1995 starring Peter O'Toole as Lord Emsworth and Richard Briers, again, as Lord Emsworth's brother, Galahad Threepwood.
Piccadilly Jim was first filmed in 1936, starring Robert Montgomery. In 2004, Julian Fellowes wrote another screen adaptation which starred Sam Rockwell. The film wasn't successful.
There was also a series of BBC adaptations of various short works, mostly from the Mulliner series, under the title of Wodehouse Playhouse starring John Alderton and Pauline Collins, which aired starting in 1975. The first series was introduced by Wodehouse himself, which was extraordinary considering he was 93 at the time and died the year the TV series started.
Arthur, starring Dudley Moore and Sir John Gielgud, and its sequel Arthur II: On the Rocks, were also an adaptation of the characters of Bertie and Jeeves, although not officially acknowledged, and many of the lines and incidents from the movie, including the main plot involving an engagement, were directly influenced by Wodehouse's characters.
Wodehouse's involvement with film and television from around the world is chronicled in Brian Taves, P.G. Wodehouse and Hollywood: Screenwriting, Satires, and Adaptations (McFarland, 2006).
Major characters
Major characters of primary importance
Wodehouse's work contains a number of recurring protagonists, narrators and principal characters, including:
Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves; his Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Agatha
Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle, and his large family
Mr Mulliner, irrepressible pub raconteur of family stories
The Oldest Member, irrepressible nineteenth hole raconteur of golf stories
Psmith, monocled dandy and socialist
Ukridge, irrepressible entrepreneur and cheerful opportunist
Uncle Fred, spreading "sweetness and light" through impersonation
Major characters of secondary importance
Certain of Wodehouse's less central characters are particularly well-known, despite being less critical elements of his works as a whole.
Anatole, chef extraordinaire
Galahad Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's brother, lifelong bachelor with a mis-spent youth and a kind heart
Sebastian Beach, Lord Emsworth's butler
Rupert Baxter, Lord Emsworth's efficient secretary
Major Brabazon-Plank, Amazon explorer, afraid of bonnie babies
Sir Roderick Glossop, psychiatrist who appears every time it could make matters worse
Tuppy Glossop, Sir Roderick's nephew
Roderick Spode, 8th Earl of Sidcup, amateur dictator
Pongo Twistleton, Uncle Fred's nephew
Oofy Prosser, millionaire member of the Drones Club
Monty Bodkin, second richest member of the Drones Club (second to Oofy Prosser)
Bingo Little, friend of Bertie Wooster
Freddie Widgeon, member of the Drones Club
Gussie Fink-Nottle, noted newt fancier
Sir Watkyn Bassett, owner of Totleigh Towers
Madeline Bassett, daughter of Sir Watkyn
Florence Craye, Bertie Wooster's cousin and author of the novel Spindrift
Lord Uffenham, owner and butler of Shipley Hall
Mike Jackson, Psmith's steadfast, cricket-playing friend
Archibald Mulliner, sock collector who can mimic a hen laying an egg
References
Sources consulted
EndnotesFurther Information
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