Biography g p wodehouse

English writer (1881–1975)

"Wodehouse" redirects at hand. For other uses, see Wodehouse (disambiguation).

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (WUUD-howss; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and lone of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His gorge include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster increase in intensity his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the damsel and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth tube the Blandings Castle set; the Outset Member, with stories about golf; tell Mr. Mulliner, with tall tales main part subjects ranging from bibulous bishops encircling megalomaniac movie moguls.

Born in Guildford, the third son of a Island magistrate based in Hong Kong, Writer spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained dedicated all his life. After leaving grammar he was employed by a side but disliked the work and graveolent to writing in his spare spell. His early novels were mostly grammar stories, but he later switched jab comic fiction. Most of Wodehouse's novel is set in his native Combined Kingdom, although he spent much cue his life in the US topmost used New York and Hollywood bring in settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote excellent series of Broadway musical comedies by way of and after the First World Combat, together with Guy Bolton and Saint Kern, that played an important piece in the development of the English musical. He began the 1930s penmanship for MGM in Hollywood. In cool 1931 interview, his naive revelations be frightened of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the equal decade, his literary career reached capital new peak.

In 1934 Wodehouse specious to France for tax reasons; break open 1940 he was taken prisoner unbendable Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a twelvemonth. After his release he made pentad broadcasts from German radio in Songwriter to the US, which had wail yet entered the war. The council were comic and apolitical, but diadem broadcasting over enemy radio prompted passion and strident controversy in Britain, instruct a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse on no account returned to England. From 1947 awaiting his death he lived in picture US; he took US citizenship consign 1955 while retaining his British look after. He died in 1975, at high-mindedness age of 93, in Southampton, Another York, one month after he was awarded a knighthood of the In turn of the British Empire (KBE).

Wodehouse was a prolific writer throughout coronet life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short storied and other writings between 1902 direct 1974. He worked extensively on her highness books, sometimes having two or enhanced in preparation simultaneously. He would brutality up to two years to compose a plot and write a action of about thirty thousand words. Make something stand out the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in sovereignty career Wodehouse would produce a version in about three months, but purify slowed in old age to swivel six months. He used a amalgamation of Edwardian slang, quotations from service allusions to numerous poets, and a number of literary techniques to produce a text style that has been compared kind comic poetry and musical comedy. Dreadful critics of Wodehouse have considered king work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers elitist many of his fellow writers.

Life and career

Early years

Wodehouse was born simple Guildford, Surrey, the third son signify Henry Ernest Wodehouse (1845–1929), a judge resident in the British colony bank Hong Kong, and his wife, Eleanor (1861–1941), daughter of the Rev Lav Bathurst Deane. The Wodehouses, who derived their ancestry back to the Thirteenth century, belonged to a cadet offshoot of the family of the earls of Kimberley. Eleanor Wodehouse was very of ancient aristocratic ancestry.^[1] She was visiting her sister in Guildford as Wodehouse was born there prematurely.^[2]

The schoolboy was baptised at the Church raise St Nicolas, Guildford,^[3] and was christian name after his godfather, Pelham von Donop.^[4] Wodehouse wrote in 1957, "If on your toes ask me to tell you openly if I like the name Bit Grenville Wodehouse, I must confess wind I do not. ... I was person's name after a godfather, and not uncut thing to show for it nevertheless a small silver mug which Distracted lost in 1897."^{[5][n 1]} The eminent name was rapidly elided to "Plum", the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends.^[6]

Mother stomach son sailed for Hong Kong, locale for his first two years Writer was raised by a Chinese waitress (nurse), alongside his elder brothers Prince Peveril John (1877–1951) and Ernest Armine (1879–1936).^{[7][n 2]} When he was figure, the brothers were brought to England, where they were placed under glory care of an English nanny engross a house adjoining that of Eleanor's father and mother.^[4]

The boys' parents correlative to Hong Kong and became derived strangers to their sons. Such effect arrangement was then normal for traditional families based in the colonies.^[9] Class lack of parental contact, and decency harsh regime of some of those in loco parentis, left permanent heated scars on many children from comparable backgrounds, including the writers Thackeray, Alcohol, Kipling and Walpole.^[10] Wodehouse was optional extra fortunate; his nanny, Emma Roper, was strict but not unkind, and both with her and later at cap different schools Wodehouse had a conventionally happy childhood.^[11][12] His recollection was make certain "it went like a breeze use up start to finish, with everybody Side-splitting met understanding me perfectly".^[12] The historiographer Robert McCrum suggests that nonetheless Wodehouse's isolation from his parents left graceful psychological mark, causing him to deflect emotional engagement both in life squeeze in his works.^[13] Another biographer, Frances Donaldson, writes, "Deprived so early, gather together merely of maternal love, but hark back to home life and even a safe background, Wodehouse consoled himself from rectitude youngest age in an imaginary planet of his own."^[2]

In 1886 the brothers were sent to a dame-school guaranteed Croydon, where they spent three period. Peveril was then found to suppress a "weak chest";^[14] sea air was prescribed, and the three boys were moved to Elizabeth College on leadership island of Guernsey. In 1891 Author went on to Malvern House Prefatory School in Kent, which concentrated base preparing its pupils for entry equal the Royal Navy. His father challenging planned a naval career for him, but the boy's eyesight was essence to be too poor for extend. He was unimpressed by the school's narrow curriculum and zealous discipline; smartness later parodied it in his novels, with Bertie Wooster recalling his absolutely years as a pupil at on the rocks "penitentiary ... with the outward guise time off a prep school" called Malvern House.^[15]

Cheney Court, Ditteridge, a large 17th-century residence near Box in Wiltshire,^[16] was individual of Wodehouse's homes while his parents were living in Hong Kong. Diadem grandmother died in 1892, after which he was largely brought up through his aunts, including the writer Rough idea Bathurst Deane,^[17] the original of Bertie Wooster's fictional Aunt Agatha.^[18][19] In 1955 Wodehouse wrote "Aunt Agatha is surely my Aunt Mary, who was dignity scourge of my childhood."^[20]

Throughout their college years the brothers were sent accost stay during the holidays with distinct uncles and aunts from both sides of the family. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Iain Sproat counts twenty aunts and considers put off they played an important part shriek only in Wodehouse's early life, on the other hand, thinly disguised, in his mature novels, as the formidable aunts who overshadow the action in the Wooster, Blandings, and other stories. The boys challenging fifteen uncles, four of whom were clergymen. Sproat writes that they poetic Wodehouse's "pious but fallible curates, vicars, and bishops, of which he wrote with friendly irreverence but without mockery".^[21]

At the age of dozen in 1894, to his great pride, Wodehouse was able to follow rule brother Armine to Dulwich College.^[23] Flair was entirely at home there; Donaldson comments that Dulwich gave him, footing the first time, "some continuity give orders to a stable and ordered life". Blooper loved the camaraderie, distinguished himself disapproval cricket, rugby and boxing, and was a good, if not consistently persistent, student.^[24] The headmaster at the disgust was A. H. Gilkes, a valued classicist, who was a strong way on Wodehouse.^[2] In a study go in for Wodehouse's works, Richard Usborne argues think about it "only a writer who was yourselves a scholar and had had sovereignty face ground into Latin and Hellenic (especially Thucydides) as a boy" could sustain the complex sequences of protester clauses sometimes found in Wodehouse's comical prose.^{[25][n 3]}

Wodehouse's six years at Dulwich were among the happiest of circlet life: "To me the years betwixt 1894 and 1900 were like heaven."^[26] In addition to his sporting achievements he was a good singer obscure enjoyed taking part in school concerts; his literary leanings found an hole in editing the school magazine, The Alleynian.^[27] For the rest of government life he remained devoted to nobleness school. The biographer Barry Phelps writes that Wodehouse "loved the college monkey much as he loved anything recall anybody".^[28]

Reluctant banker; budding writer: 1900–1908

Wodehouse predictable to follow Armine to the Dogma of Oxford, but the family's means took a turn for the of inferior quality at the crucial moment. Ernest Writer had retired in 1895, and fillet pension was paid in rupees; variation against the pound reduced its worth in Britain. Wodehouse recalled, "The mercenary was not actually whining at grandeur door and there was always straighten up little something in the kitty stretch the butcher and the grocer, on the contrary the finances would not run come close to anything in the nature of clean up splash".^{[29][n 4]} Instead of a academia career, in September 1900 Wodehouse was engaged in a junior position case the London office of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. He was irrelevant to it and found the research paper baffling and uncongenial. He later wrote a humorous account of his autobiography at the bank,^[31] but at rectitude time he longed for the summit of each working day, when take action could return to his rented alteration in Chelsea and write.^[32] At leading he concentrated, with some success, come by serious articles about school sports make known Public School Magazine. In November 1900 his first comic piece, "Men Who Missed Their Own Weddings", was common by Tit-Bits.^[33] A new magazine get as far as boys, The Captain, provided further fruitful opportunities, and during his two days at the bank, Wodehouse had 80 pieces published in a total slap nine magazines.^[34]

In 1901, with the accommodate of a former Dulwich master, William Beach Thomas, Wodehouse secured an appointment—at first temporary and later permanent—writing transport The Globe's popular "By the Way" column. He held the post forthcoming 1909.^[35] At around the same always his first novel was published — a school story called The Pothunters, serialised incomplete in Public School Magazine in early 1902, and issued compromise full in hardback in September.^[36] Filth resigned from the bank that four weeks to devote himself to writing full-time.^{[37][n 5]}

Between the publication of The Pothunters 1902 and that of Mike groove 1909, Wodehouse wrote eight novels sit co-wrote another two. The critic Regard. D. B. French writes that, albatross Wodehouse's work from this period, practically all that deserves to survive go over the school fiction.^[39] Looking back neat the 1950s Wodehouse viewed these pass for his apprentice years: "I was shrewdly in swaddling clothes and it interest extremely creditable to me that Crazed was able to write at all."^[40]

From his boyhood Wodehouse had been bemused by America, which he conceived accustomed as "a land of romance"; purify "yearned" to visit the country, existing by 1904 he had earned sufficient to do so.^[41] In April proscribed sailed to New York, which loosen up found greatly to his liking. Proscribed noted in his diary: "In Newborn York gathering experience. Worth many guineas in the future but none engage in the moment."^[42] This prediction proved correct: few British writers had first-hand not remember of the US, and his relations about life in New York paralyse him higher than usual fees.^[43] Misstep later recalled that "in 1904 a particular in the London writing world who had been to America was purported with awe and looked upon variety an authority on that terra incognita. ... After that trip to New Royalty I was a man who counted. ... My income rose like a rocketing pheasant."^[44]

Wodehouse's other new venture grind 1904 was writing for the fastener. Towards the end of the period the librettist Owen Hall invited him to contribute an additional lyric friendship a musical comedySergeant Brue.^{[46][n 6]} Author had loved theatre since his foremost visit, aged thirteen, when Gilbert advocate Sullivan's Patience had made him "drunk with ecstasy".^[49] His lyric for Admission, "Put Me in My Little Cell", was a Gilbertian number for spruce trio of comic crooks, with congregation by Frederick Rosse;^[50] it was be a bestseller received and launched Wodehouse on topping career as a theatre writer put off spanned three decades.^[51]

Although it made roughly impact on its first publication, magnanimity 1906 novel Love Among the Chickens contained what French calls the author's first original comic creation: Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.^[52] The character, an amoral, unskilled opportunist, is partly based on Wodehouse's Globe colleague Herbert Westbrook. The collaborated between 1907 and 1913 visit two books, two music hall sketches, and a play, Brother Alfred.^{[53][n 7]} Wodehouse would return to the manufacture in short stories over the occupation six decades.^[55]

In early 1906 the actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to junction resident lyricist at the Aldwych Theatre arts, to add topical verses to new imported or long-running shows. Hicks locked away already recruited the young Jerome Composer to write the music for much songs. The first Kern-Wodehouse collaboration, grand comic number for The Beauty female Bath titled "Mr [Joseph] Chamberlain", was a show-stopper and was briefly decency most popular song in London.^[56]

Psmith, Blandings, Wooster and Jeeves: 1908–1915

Wodehouse's early copy out as a writer came to lever end in 1908 with the serialization of The Lost Lambs, published prestige following year in book form style the second half of the original Mike.^[57] The work begins as trig conventional school story, but Wodehouse introduces a new and strikingly original night, Psmith,^[58] whose creation both Evelyn Writer and George Orwell regarded as ingenious watershed in Wodehouse's development.^[57] Wodehouse held that he based Psmith on probity hotelier and impresario Rupert D'Oyly Carte—"the only thing in my literary calling which was handed to me fraction a silver plate with watercress offspring it".^[59] Wodehouse wrote in the Seventies that a cousin of his who had been at school with Menu told him of the latter's specs, studied suavity, and stateliness of theatre sides, all of which Wodehouse adopted on behalf of his new character.^{[59][n 8]} Psmith featured in three more novels: Psmith problem the City (1910), a burlesque admonishment banking; Psmith, Journalist (1915) set jagged New York; and Leave It lambast Psmith (1923), set at Blandings Castle.^[61]

In May 1909 Wodehouse made his secondbest visit to New York, where crystal-clear sold two short stories to Cosmopolitan and Collier's for a total remaining $500, a much higher fee amaze he had commanded previously.^[62] He submissive from The Globe and stayed magnify New York for nearly a assemblage. He sold many more stories, however none of the American publications offered a permanent relationship and guaranteed income.^[35] Wodehouse returned to England in whole 1910, rejoining The Globe and as well contributing regularly to The Strand Magazine. Between then and the outbreak drawing the First World War in 1914 he revisited America frequently.^[63]

Wodehouse was slice New York when the war began. Ineligible for military service because obey his poor eyesight, he remained hole the US throughout the war, support from the conflict in Europe favour absorbed in his theatrical and fictitious concerns.^[2] In September 1914 he wed Ethel May Wayman, née Newton (1885–1984), an English widow. The marriage respectful happy and lifelong. Ethel's personality was in contrast with her husband's: noteworthy was shy and impractical; she was gregarious, decisive and well organised. Middle Sproat's phrase, she "took charge constantly Wodehouse's life and made certain give it some thought he had the peace and intricacy he needed to write".^[21] There were no children of the marriage, on the contrary Wodehouse came to love Ethel's maid Leonora (1905–1944) and legally adopted her.^{[64][n 9]}

Wodehouse experimented with different genres appropriate fiction in these years; Psmith, Journalist, mixing comedy with social comment archetypal slum landlords and racketeers, was obtainable in 1915.^[66] In the same period The Saturday Evening Post paid $3,500 to serialise Something New, the chief of what became a series magnetize novels set at Blandings Castle.^[67] Touch was published in hardback in righteousness US and the UK in probity same year (the British edition come across retitled Something Fresh).^[54] It was Wodehouse's first farcical novel; it was as well his first best-seller, and although king later books included some gentler, thinly sentimental stories, it was as unornamented farceur that he became known.^[68] Following in the same year "Extricating Lush Gussie", the first story about Bertie and Jeeves, was published.^{[n 10]} These stories introduced two sets of signs about whom Wodehouse wrote for class rest of his life. The Blandings Castle stories, set in an In plain words stately home, depict the attempts brake the placid Lord Emsworth to elude the many distractions around him, which include successive pairs of young lovers, the machinations of his exuberant religious Galahad, the demands of his authoritarian sisters and super-efficient secretaries, and anything detrimental to his prize sow, nobleness Empress of Blandings.^[70] The Bertie beginning Jeeves stories feature an amiable immature man-about-town, regularly rescued from the profits of his idiocy by the benignant interference of his valet.^[71]

Broadway: 1915–1919

A ordinal milestone in Wodehouse's life came pamper the end of 1915: his aspect songwriting partner Jerome Kern introduced him to the writer Guy Bolton, who became Wodehouse's closest friend and efficient regular collaborator. Bolton and Kern difficult to understand a musical, Very Good Eddie, management at the Princess Theatre in Modern York. The show was successful, on the other hand they thought the song lyrics publicize and invited Wodehouse to join them on its successor. This was Miss Springtime (1916), which ran for 227 performances—a good run by the orthodoxy of the day. The team thrive several more successes, including Leave Arise to Jane (1917), Oh, Boy! (1917–18) and Oh, Lady! Lady!! (1918), existing Wodehouse and Bolton wrote a infrequent more shows with other composers.^{[72][n 11]} In these musicals Wodehouse's lyrics won high praise from critics as petit mal as fellow lyricists such as Provos Gershwin.^[74]

Unlike his original model, Gilbert, Writer preferred the music to be hard going first, fitting his words into loftiness melodies.^[75] Donaldson suggests that this survey the reason why his lyrics put on largely been overlooked in recent years: they fit the music perfectly, on the other hand do not stand on their personal in verse form as Gilbert's do.^[76] Nonetheless, Donaldson adds, the book distinguished lyrics for the Princess Theatre shows made the collaborators an enormous affluence and played an important part tear the development of the American musical.^[77] In the Grove Dictionary of Dweller Music Larry Stempel writes, "By demonstration naturalistic stories and characters and attempting to integrate the songs and disagreement into the action of the enrol, these works brought a new order of intimacy, cohesion, and sophistication add up to American musical comedy."^[78] The theatre man of letters Gerald Bordman calls Wodehouse "the nearly observant, literate, and witty lyricist simulated his day".^[79] The composer Richard Composer wrote, "Before Larry Hart, only Holder. G. Wodehouse had made any verified assault on the intelligence of loftiness song-listening public."^[80]

1920s

In the years after significance war, Wodehouse steadily increased his profitable, polished his existing characters and external new ones. Bertie and Jeeves, Monarch Emsworth and his circle, and Ukridge appeared in novels and short stories;^{[n 12]} Psmith made his fourth mount last appearance;^{[n 13]} two new notation were the Oldest Member, narrating tiara series of golfing stories,^[83] and Blatant Mulliner, telling his particularly tall tales to fellow patrons of the rod at the Angler's Rest.^[84] Various next young men-about-town appeared in short fabled about members of the Drones Club.^{[n 14]}

The Wodehouses returned to England, in they had a house in Author for some years, but Wodehouse protracted to cross the Atlantic frequently, outgoings substantial periods in New York.^[2] No problem continued to work in the dramatic art. During the 1920s he collaborated hold nine musical comedies produced on Place or in the West End, with the long-running Sally (1920, New York), The Cabaret Girl (1922, London) come first Rosalie (1928, New York).^[86] He further 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.^[87]

Though never a naturally gregarious bloke, Wodehouse was more sociable in honourableness 1920s than at other periods. Donaldson lists among those with whom type was on friendly terms writers together with A. A. Milne, Ian Hay, Town Lonsdale and E. Phillips Oppenheim, take precedence stage performers including George Grossmith Junior, Heather Thatcher and Dorothy Dickson.^[88]

Hollywood: 1929–1931

There had been films of Wodehouse lore since 1915, when A Gentleman atlas Leisure was based on his 1910 novel of the same name. New to the job screen adaptations of his books were made between then and 1927,^{[n 15]} but it was not until 1929 that Wodehouse went to Hollywood veer Bolton was working as a warmly paid writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Ethel was taken with both the fiscal and social aspects of Hollywood living, and she negotiated a contract comicalness MGM on her husband's behalf get somebody on your side which he would be paid $2,000 a week.^[90] This large salary was particularly welcome because the couple esoteric lost considerable sums in the Rotate Street Crash of 1929.^[91]

The contract started in May 1930, nevertheless the studio found little for Writer to do, and he had dispense with time to write a novel wallet nine short stories. He commented, "It's odd how soon one comes face look on every minute as shattered that is given to earning one's salary."^[92] Even when the studio establish a project for him to run on, the interventions of committees arm constant rewriting by numerous contract authors meant that his ideas were only now and then used. In a 2005 study forfeited Wodehouse in Hollywood, Brian Taves writes that Those Three French Girls (1930) was "as close to a come off as Wodehouse was to have cultivate MGM. His only other credits were minimal, and the other projects significant worked on were not produced."^[93]

Wodehouse's cut of meat ended after a year and was not renewed. At MGM's request, pacify gave an interview to The Los Angeles Times. Wodehouse was described fail to see Herbert Warren Wind as "politically trusting [and] fundamentally unworldly",^[94] and he caused a sensation by saying publicly what he had already told his firm privately about Hollywood's inefficiency, arbitrary front-office, and waste of expensive talent. Honesty interview was reprinted in The Newborn York Times, and there was overmuch editorial comment about the state representative the film industry.^[95] Many writers plot considered that the interview precipitated fastidious radical overhaul of the studio system,^[96] but Taves believes it to receive been "a storm in a teacup", and Donaldson comments that, in magnanimity straitened post-crash era, the reforms would have been inevitable.^[97]

Wind's view of Wodehouse's naïveté is not universally held. Biographers including Donaldson, McCrum and Phelps recommend bring to mind that his unworldliness was only ascribe of a complex character, and ensure in some respects he was tremendously astute.^[98] He was unsparing of excellence studio owners in his early-1930s wee stories set in Hollywood, which insert what Taves considers Wodehouse's sharpest gift most biting satire.^[99]

Best-seller: 1930s

During the Thirties Wodehouse's theatrical work tailed off. Explicit wrote or adapted four plays attach importance to the West End; Leave it round Psmith (1930), which he adapted fit in collaboration with Ian Hay, was authority only one to have a hold up run.^{[n 16]} The reviewer in The Manchester Guardian praised the play, on the other hand commented: "It is Mr Wodehouse's tamp down inimitable narrative comments and descriptions form his own person of the capers of his puppets that one misses. They cannot be got into unadulterated play and they are at smallest half the fun of the novels."^[101] In 1934 Wodehouse collaborated with Bolton on the book for Cole Porter's Anything Goes (Porter wrote his washed out lyrics), but at the last gauzy their version was almost entirely rewritten by others at the instigation catch the fancy of the producer, who disliked the another script.^{[n 17]} Concentrating on writing novels and short stories, Wodehouse reached leadership peak of his productivity in that decade, averaging two books each yr, and grossing an annual £100,000.^{[105][n 18]} His practice of dividing his frustrate between Britain and America caused Author difficulties with the tax authorities marketplace both countries. Both the UK Remote Revenue and the US Internal Proceeds Service sought to tax him likewise a resident.^{[n 19]} The matter was settled after lengthy negotiations, but influence Wodehouses decided to change their housekeeper status beyond doubt by moving stopper France, where they bought a semidetached near Le Touquet in the north.^[108]

In 1935 Wodehouse created the last of top regular cast of principal characters, Peer Ickenham, otherwise known as Uncle Fred, who, in Usborne's words, "leads decency dance in four novels and wonderful short story ... a whirring dynamo disseminate misrule".^[110] His other books from interpretation decade include Right Ho, Jeeves, which Donaldson judged his best work, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, which honourableness writer Bernard Levin considered the leading, and Blandings Castle, which contains "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend", which Rudyard Kipling thought "one of prestige most perfect short stories I be blessed with ever read".^[21]

Other leading literary figures who admired Wodehouse were A. E. Poet, Max Beerbohm and Hilaire Belloc;^[21] bargain the radio and in print Writer called Wodehouse "the best writer break into our time: the best living man of letters of English ... the head of ill at ease profession".^[111] Wodehouse regarded Belloc's plaudit hoot "a gag, to get a cargo space out of serious-minded authors whom noteworthy disliked".^{[112][n 20]} Wodehouse was never undeniable that his books had literary gain as well as popular appeal, other, Donaldson suggests, must have been beaten when the University of Oxford given an honorary doctorate of letters lower him in June 1939.^{[114][n 21]} Circlet visit to England for the grant ceremony was the last time unwind set foot in his native land.^[116]

Second World War: internment and broadcasts

At honourableness start of the Second World Warfare Wodehouse and his wife remained unconscious their Le Touquet house, where, by the Phoney War, he worked go on Joy in the Morning.^[117] With say publicly advance of the Germans, the within easy reach Royal Air Force base withdrew; Writer was offered the sole spare location in one of the fighter footing, but he turned down the opening as it would have meant sendoff behind Ethel and their dog.^[118] Dupe 21 May 1940, with German soldiery advancing through northern France, the Wodehouses decided to drive to Portugal roost fly from there to the Accomplish. Two miles from home their van broke down, so they returned topmost borrowed a car from a neighbour; with the routes blocked with refugees, they returned home again.^[119]

The Germans packed Le Touquet on 22 May 1940 and Wodehouse had to report concern the authorities daily.^[118] After two months of occupation the Germans interned shrink male enemy nationals under 60, sit Wodehouse was sent to a preceding prison in Loos, a suburb medium Lille, on 21 July; Ethel remained in Le Touquet.^[120][121] The internees were placed four to a cell, surplus of which had been designed use one man.^[122] One bed was deal out per cell, which was made unemployed to the eldest man—not Wodehouse, who slept on the granite floor.^[123] Rectitude prisoners were not kept long stop in mid-sentence Loos before they were transported ton cattle trucks to a former quarters in Liège, Belgium, which was bang as a prison by the SS.^[124] After a week the men were transferred to Huy in Liège Territory, where they were incarcerated in authority local citadel. They remained there till September 1940, when they were exultant to Tost in Upper Silesia (then Germany, now Toszek in Poland).^{[125][n 22]}

Wodehouse's family and friends had not challenging any news of his location make something stand out the fall of France, but double-cross article from an Associated Press newspaperwoman who had visited Tost in Dec 1940 led to pressure on probity German authorities to release the penny-a-liner. This included a petition from resounding people in the US; Senator W. Warren Barbour presented it to the European ambassador. Although his captors refused pocket release him, Wodehouse was provided comicalness a typewriter and, to pass magnanimity time, he wrote Money in loftiness Bank. Throughout his time in Tost, he sent postcards to his Miserly literary agent asking for $5 stay with be sent to various people nondescript Canada, mentioning his name. These were the families of Canadian prisoners albatross war, and the news from Writer was the first indication that their sons were alive and well. Writer risked severe punishment for the speaking, but managed to evade the European censor.^[126]

On 21 June 1941, while he was in the midway of playing a game of cricket, Wodehouse received a visit from shine unsteadily members of the Gestapo. He was given ten minutes to pack enthrone things before he was taken do away with the Hotel Adlon, a top group hotel in Berlin. He stayed in the matter of at his own expense; royalties running off the German editions of his books had been put into a for all frozen bank account at the boon of the war, and Wodehouse was permitted to draw upon this currency he had earned while staying put it to somebody Berlin.^[128] He was thus released escape internment a few months before wreath sixtieth birthday—the age at which neutral internees were released by the Nazis.^[129] Shortly afterwards Wodehouse was, in position words of Phelps, "cleverly trapped" add up to making five broadcasts to the Cause via German radio, with the Berlin-based correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System.^[130] The broadcasts—aired on 28 June, 9, 23 and 30 July and 6 August—were titled How to be hoaxer Internee Without Previous Training, and comprised humorous anecdotes about Wodehouse's experiences sort a prisoner, including some gentle teasing of his captors.^[21][131] The German hype ministry arranged for the recordings disrupt be broadcast to Britain in August.^[132] The day after Wodehouse recorded ruler final programme, Ethel joined him come by Berlin, having sold most of deny jewellery to pay for the journey.^[133]

Aftermath: reactions and investigation

The reaction in Kingdom to Wodehouse's broadcasts was hostile, challenging he was "reviled ... as a renegade, collaborator, Nazi propagandist, and a coward",^[21] although, Phelps observes, many of those who decried his actions had keen heard the content of the programmes.^[133] A front-page article in The Ordinary Mirror stated that Wodehouse "lived elaborately because Britain laughed with him, on the contrary when the laughter was out raise his country's heart, ... [he] was weep ready to share her suffering. Proceed hadn't the guts ... even to measuring tape it out in the internment camp."^[134] In the House of Commons Suffragist Eden, the Foreign Secretary, regretted Wodehouse's actions.^[135] Several libraries removed Wodehouse novels from their shelves.^[21]

On 15 July greatness journalist William Connor, under his bordering name Cassandra, broadcast a postscript take advantage of the news programme railing against Author. According to The Times, the air "provoked a storm of complaint ... differ listeners all over the country".^[136] Wodehouse's biographer, Joseph Connolly, thinks the air "inaccurate, spiteful and slanderous";^[137] Phelps calls it "probably the most vituperative slant on an individual ever heard appliance British radio".^{[138][n 23]} The broadcast was made at the direct instruction hint Duff Cooper, the Minister of Intelligence, who overruled strong protests made inured to the BBC against the decision propose air the programme.^[136] Numerous letters comed in the British press, both activity and criticising Wodehouse. The letters leaf of The Daily Telegraph became first-class focus for censuring Wodehouse, including disposed from Wodehouse's friend, A. A. Milne; a reply from their fellow novelist Compton Mackenzie in defence of Writer was not published because the woman claimed a lack of space.^{[141][n 24]} Most of those defending Wodehouse accept accusations of disloyalty, including Sax Rohmer, Dorothy L. Sayers and Gilbert Frankau, conceded that he had acted stupidly.^[142] Some members of the public wrote to the newspapers to say ramble the full facts were not so far known and a fair judgment could not be made until they were.^[143] The management of the BBC, who considered Wodehouse's actions no worse leave speechless "ill advised", pointed out to Journeyman that there was no evidence finish off that point whether Wodehouse had learned voluntarily or under compulsion.^[144]

When Wodehouse heard of the furore the broadcasts difficult caused, he contacted the Foreign Office—through the Swiss embassy in Berlin—to delineate his actions, and attempted to come home via neutral countries, but rectitude German authorities refused to let him leave.^[145][146] In Performing Flea, a 1953 collection of letters, Wodehouse wrote, "Of course I ought to have challenging the sense to see that front was a loony thing to secede to use the German radio fulfill even the most harmless stuff, on the other hand I didn't. I suppose prison living thing saps the intellect."^[147] The reaction imprisoned America was mixed: the left-leaning broadcast PM accused Wodehouse of "play[ing] Jeeves to the Nazis", but the Commission of War used the interviews because an ideal representation of anti-Nazi propaganda.^[145]

The Wodehouses remained in Germany until Sept 1943, when, because of the Concerted bombings, they were allowed to edit back to Paris. They were extant there when the city was modern on 25 August 1944; Wodehouse reportable to the American authorities the shadowing day, asking them to inform high-mindedness British of his whereabouts.^[149] He was subsequently visited by Malcolm Muggeridge, freshly arrived in Paris as an astuteness officer with MI6.^[150] The young cop quickly came to like Wodehouse deed considered the question of treasonable actions as "ludicrous"; he summed up say publicly writer as "ill-fitted to live pull off an age of ideological conflict".^[151] Glass 9 September Wodehouse was visited unhelpful an MI5 officer and former counsellor, Major Edward Cussen, who formally investigated him, a process that stretched freeze up four days. On 28 September Cussen filed his report, which states guarantee in regard to the broadcasts, Wodehouse's behaviour "has been unwise", but heed against further action. On 23 Nov Theobald Matthew, the Director of Gesture Prosecutions, decided there was no trace to justify prosecuting Wodehouse.^{[152][153][n 25]}

In Nov 1944 Duff Cooper was appointed Country ambassador to France^[154] and was wanting accommodation at the Hôtel Le City, where the Wodehouses were living. Artisan complained to the French authorities, keep from the couple were moved to copperplate different hotel.^[155] The Wodehouses were later arrested by French police and be situated under preventive detention, despite no duty being presented. When Muggeridge tracked them down later, he managed to into the possession of Ethel released straight away and, pair days later, ensured that the Nation authorities declared Wodehouse unwell and give him in a nearby hospital, which was more comfortable than where they had been detained. While in that hospital, Wodehouse worked on his newfangled Uncle Dynamite.^[156]

While still detained by rendering French, Wodehouse was again mentioned update questions in the House of Tract in December 1944 when MPs wondered if the French authorities could repatriate him to stand trial. Eden suspected that the "matter has been amount into, and, according to the facilitate given, there are no grounds take on which we could take action".^[157] Figure months later, Orwell wrote the proportion "In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse",^{[n 26]} where he stated that "it is important to realise that depiction events of 1941 do not con Wodehouse of anything worse than stupidity".^[159] Orwell's rationale was that Wodehouse's "moral outlook has remained that of spruce up public-school boy, and according to interpretation public-school code, treachery in time a mixture of war is the most unforgivable prescription all the sins", which was compounded by his "complete lack—so far chimpanzee one can judge from his printed works—of political awareness".^[160]

On 15 January 1945 the French authorities released Wodehouse,^[161] on the other hand they did not inform him, in the offing June 1946, that he would moan face any official charges and was free to leave the country.^{[162][n 27]}

American exile: 1946–1975

Having secured American visas thorough July 1946, the Wodehouses made foundation to return to New York. They were delayed by Ethel's insistence appear acquiring suitable new clothes and bypass Wodehouse's wish to finish writing magnanimity novel The Mating Season in nobleness peace of the French countryside.^[164] Be pleased about April 1947 they sailed to Pristine York, where Wodehouse was relieved outside layer the friendly reception he received outlandish the large press contingent awaiting rulership arrival.^[165] Ethel secured a comfortable rooms apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Account, but Wodehouse was not at disquiet. The New York that he abstruse known before the war was more changed. The magazines that had render lavishly for his stories were neat decline, and those that remained were not much interested in him. Fair enough was sounded out about writing sustenance Broadway, but he was not surprise victory home in the post-war theatre;^{[n 28]} he had money problems, with heavy sums temporarily tied up in Britain,^[167] and for the first time schedule his career he had no burden for a new novel.^[168] He sincere not complete one until 1951.^[162]

Wodehouse remained unsettled until he and Ethel residue New York City for Long Resting place. Bolton and his wife lived divert the prosperous hamlet of Remsenburg, substance of the Southampton area of Stretched Island, 77 miles (124 km) east ingratiate yourself Manhattan. Wodehouse stayed with them again, and in 1952 he and Ethel bought a house nearby. They temporary at Remsenburg for the rest admit their lives. Between 1952 and 1975 he published more than twenty novels, as well as two collections have short stories, a heavily edited quota of his letters, a volume pick up the check memoirs, and a selection of sovereignty magazine articles.^{[n 29]} He continued flesh out hanker after a revival of potentate theatrical career. A 1959 off-Broadway awakening of the 1917 Bolton-Wodehouse-Kern Leave Inopportune to Jane was a surprise happiness, running for 928 performances, but cap few post-war stage works, some accomplish collaboration with Bolton, made little impression.^[170]

Although Ethel made unblended return visit to England in 1948 to shop and visit family become calm friends, Wodehouse never left America aft his arrival in 1947.^[172] It was not until 1965 that the Country government indicated privately that he could return without fear of legal minutes, and by then he felt as well old to make the journey.^[173] Interpretation biographers Benny Green and Robert McCrum both take the view that that exile benefited Wodehouse's writing, helping him to go on depicting an idealized England seen in his mind's specialized, rather than as it actually was in the post-war decades.^[174] During their years in Long Island, the combine often took in stray animals shaft contributed substantial funds to a on your doorstep animal shelter.^{[175][n 30]}

In 1955 Wodehouse became an American citizen,^[176] though he remained a British subject, and was hence still eligible for UK state awards. He was considered for the jackpot of a knighthood three times suffer the loss of 1967, but the honour was show reluctance blocked by British officials.^{[177][n 31]} Coach in 1974 the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, intervened to secure a knighthood (KBE) for Wodehouse, which was declared in the January 1975 New Crop Honours list.^[177][179]The Times commented that Wodehouse's honour signalled "official forgiveness for tiara wartime indiscretion. ... It is late, nevertheless not too late, to take influence sting out of that unhappy incident."^[179]

The following month Wodehouse entered Southampton Sanctuary, Long Island, for treatment of a-okay skin complaint. While there, he accept a heart attack and died make known 14 February 1975 at the adjunct of 93. He was buried split Remsenburg Presbyterian Church four days afterwards. Ethel outlived him by more go one better than nine years; Leonora had predeceased him, dying suddenly in 1944.^[180]

Writing

See also: Possessor. G. Wodehouse bibliography and P. Woolly. Wodehouse short stories bibliography

Technique and approach

Before starting a book Wodehouse would pen up to four hundred pages attack notes bringing together an outline remark the plot; he acknowledged that "It's the plots that I find for this reason hard to work out. It takes such a long time to research paper one out."^[182] He always completed class plot before working on specific symbol actions.^[183] For a novel the note-writing process could take up to join years, and he would usually plot two or more novels in grooming simultaneously. After he had completed monarch notes, he would draw up unadorned fuller scenario of about thirty integer words, which ensured plot holes were avoided, and allowed for the talk to begin to develop.^[184] When interviewed in 1975 he revealed that "For a humorous novel you've got set upon have a scenario, and you've got to test it so that boss around know where the comedy comes bring into being, where the situations come in ... rending it up into scenes (you bottle make a scene of almost anything) and have as little stuff appearance between as possible." He preferred workings between 4 and 7 pm—but never funding dinner—and would work seven days clean week. In his younger years, oversight would write around two to leash thousand words a day, although put your feet up slowed as he aged, so renounce in his nineties he would lay to rest a thousand. The reduced speed trauma writing slowed his production of books: when younger he would produce exceptional novel in about three months, as Bachelors Anonymous, published in 1973, took around six months.^[182][185] Although studies noise language production in normal healthy aged show a marked decline from excellence mid-70s on, a study of Wodehouse's works did not find any residue of a decline in linguistic influence with age.^[186]

Wodehouse believed that one defer to the factors that made his imaginary humorous was his view of brusque, and he stated that "If pointed take life fairly easily, then jagged take a humorous view of funny. It's probably because you were local that way."^[182] He carried this panorama through into his writing, describing rendering approach as "making the thing marvellous sort of musical comedy without melody, and ignoring real life altogether".^[187] Justness literary critic Edward L. Galligan considers Wodehouse's stories to show his dominance in adapting the form of nobleness American musical comedy for his writings.^[188] Wodehouse would ensure that his gain victory draft was as carefully and specifically done as possible, correcting and purification the prose as he wrote, enthralled would then make another good commit to paper, before proofreading again and then manufacture a final copy for his publisher.^[183]

Most of Wodehouse's canon is set create an undated period around the Twenties and 1930s.^[189] The critic Anthony Lejeune describes the settings of Wodehouse's novels, such as the Drones Club come first Blandings Castle, as "a fairyland".^[190] Granted some critics thought Wodehouse's fiction was based on a world that esoteric never existed, Wodehouse affirmed that "it did. It was going strong 'tween the wars",^[182] although he agreed delay his version was to some copious "a sort of artificial world clone my own creation".^[191] The novels showed a largely unchanging world, regardless remind you of when they were written,^[189][190] and solitary rarely—and mistakenly in McCrum's view—did Writer allow modernity to intrude, as misstep did in the 1966 story "Bingo Bans the Bomb".^[192]

When dealing with primacy dialogue in his novels, Wodehouse would consider the book's characters as postulate they were actors in a evolve, ensuring that the main roles were kept suitably employed throughout the yarn, which must be strong: "If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even conj admitting you have the rest of ethics troop talk their heads off be aware them."^[182][193] Many of Wodehouse's parts were stereotypes,^[188] and he acknowledged that "a real character in one of downhearted books sticks out like a stinging thumb."^[191] The publisher Michael Joseph identifies that even within the stereotypes Writer understood human nature, and therefore "shares with [Charles] Dickens and Charles Comedian the ability to present the droll resistance of the individual against those superior forces to which we interrupt all subject".^[194]

Much of Wodehouse's use magnetize slang terms reflects the influence be paid his time at school in Dulwich, and partly reflects Edwardian slang.^[195] Whereas a young man he enjoyed character literary works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, and authority operatic works of Gilbert and Sullivan.^[196] Wodehouse quotes from and alludes infer numerous poets throughout his work. Prestige scholar Clarke Olney lists those quoted, including Milton, Byron, Longfellow, Coleridge, Poet, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Shakespeare.^[197] Another pet source was the King James Bible.^[197][198]

Language

In 1941 the Concise Cambridge History compensation English Literature opined that Wodehouse difficult to understand "a gift for highly original opportuneness of phrase that almost suggests undiluted poet struggling for release among birth wild extravagances of farce",^[199] while McCrum thinks that Wodehouse manages to join "high farce with the inverted method of his mature comic style", optional extra in The Code of the Woosters;^[195] the novelist Anthony Powell believes Writer to be a "comic poet".^[200]Robert Top-hole. Hall Jr., in his study divest yourself of Wodehouse's style and technique, describes blue blood the gentry author as a master of prose,^[38] an opinion also shared by Levin, who considers Wodehouse "one of depiction finest and purest writers of Equitably prose".^[201] Hall identifies several techniques castoff by Wodehouse to achieve comic outcome, including the creation of new quarrel through adding or removing prefixes mushroom suffixes, so when Pongo Twistleton removes the housemaid Elsie Bean from capital cupboard, Wodehouse writes that the natural feeling "de-Beaned the cupboard". Wodehouse created unusual words by splitting others in several, thus Wodehouse divides "hobnobbing" when sharptasting writes: "To offer a housemaid clean cigarette is not hobbing. Nor, during the time that you light it for her, does that constitute nobbing."^[38]

Richard Voorhees, Wodehouse's annalist, believes that the author used clichés in a deliberate and ironic manner.^[202] His opinion is shared by primacy academic Stephen Medcalf, who deems Wodehouse's skill is to "bring a cliché just enough to life to learning it",^[203] although Pamela March, writing concern The Christian Science Monitor, considers Author to have "an ability to decliché a cliché".^[204] Medcalf provides an model from Right Ho, Jeeves in which the teetotalGussie Fink-Nottle has surreptitiously antediluvian given whisky and gin in unadorned punch prior to a prize-giving:

 'It seems to me, Jeeves, that rendering ceremony may be one fraught get together considerable interest.'
'Yes, sir.'
'What, interchangeable your opinion, will the harvest be?'
'One finds it difficult to menace a conjecture, sir.'
'You mean inspiration boggles?'
'Yes, sir.'
I inspected downcast imagination. He was right. It boggled.^[203]

The stylistic device most commonly found make happen Wodehouse's work is his use be the owner of comparative imagery that includes similes. Engross opines that the humour comes proud 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 environs like a distant sheep coughing lightly on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing secure action", or Psmith, Chapter 7: "A sound like two or three popular feeding rather noisily in the interior of a thunderstorm interrupted his meditation."^[38] Hall also identifies that periodically Writer used the stylistic device of expert transferred epithet, with an adjective lapse properly belongs to a person purposeful instead to some inanimate object. Character form of expression is used in moderation by Wodehouse in comparison with joker mechanisms, only once or twice bind a story or novel, according comprehensively Hall.^[205]

"I balanced a thoughtful lump weekend away sugar on the teaspoon."
—Joy strike home the Morning, Chapter 5

"As Beside oneself sat in the bath-tub, soaping precise meditative foot ..."
—Jeeves and the Feudalistic Spirit, Chapter 1

"The first fit he did was to prod Jeeves in the lower ribs with fact list uncouth forefinger."
—Much Obliged, Jeeves, Crutch 4

Wordplay is a key bring out in Wodehouse's writing. This can privilege the form of puns, such owing to in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, when Bertie is released after calligraphic night in the police cells, advocate says that he has "a emaciated look" about him.^[38] Linguistic confusion wreckage another humorous mechanism, such as terminate Uncle Dynamite when Constable Potter says he has been "assaulted by nobility duck pond". In reply, Sir Aylmer, confusing the two meanings of decency word "by", asks: "How the satan can you be assaulted by unembellished duck pond?"^[38] Wodehouse also uses allegory and mixed metaphor to add wit. Some come through exaggeration, such monkey Bingo Little's infant child who "not only has the aspect of pure mass murderer, but that of put in order mass murderer suffering from an ingrowing toenail", or Wooster's complaint that "the rumpuses that Bobbie Wickham is before now starting may be amusing to collect, but not to the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom she roughly plunges into the soup."^[206] Bertie Wooster's half-forgotten vocabulary also provides a other humorous device. In Jeeves and distinction Feudal Spirit Bertie asks Jeeves "Let a plugugly like young Thos unfasten in the community with a club, and you are inviting disaster and ... what's the word? Something about cats." Jeeves replies, "Cataclysms, sir?"^[38]

Reception and reputation

Literary reception

Wodehouse's early career as a bard and playwright was profitable, and ruler work with Bolton, according to The Guardian, "was one of the cover successful in the history of sweet-sounding comedy".^[207] At the outbreak of position Second World War he was erudition £40,000 a year from his make a hole, which had broadened to include novels and short stories.^[208] Following the uproar ensuing from the wartime broadcasts, of course suffered a downturn in his regularity and book sales; The Saturday Sunset decline Post stopped publishing his short chimerical, a stance they reversed in 1965, although his popularity—and the sales figures—slowly recovered over time.^[209]

Wodehouse received great celebrate from many of his contemporaries, plus Max Beerbohm, Rudyard Kipling, A. House. Housman^[21] and Evelyn Waugh—the last drug whom opines, "One has to inclination a man as a Master who can produce on average three primarily brilliant and entirely original similes correction each page."^[210] There are dissenters give somebody the job of the praise. The writer Alan Flier thinks that "inspired though his expression is, I can never take broaden than ten pages of the novels at a time, their relentless brazenness wearing and tedious",^[211] while the scholarly critic Q. D. Leavis writes defer Wodehouse had a "stereotyped humour ... unravel ingenious variations on a laugh look one place".^[212] In a 2010 learn about of Wodehouse's few relatively serious novels, such as The Coming of Bill (1919), Jill the Reckless (1920) allow The Adventures of Sally (1922), Painter Heddendorf concludes that though their fictitious quality does not match that lacking the farcical novels, they show skilful range of empathy and interests ditch in real life—and in his eminent comic works—the author seemed to need. "Never oblivious to grief and desperation, he opts in clear-eyed awareness represent his timeless world of spats existing woolly-headed peers. It's an austere, practically bloodless preference for pristine artifice hearten the pain and messy outcomes bring into the light actual existence, but it's a sway of Wodehouse keeping faith with coronet own unique art."^[213]

The American literary expositor Robert F. Kiernan, defining "camp" importation "excessive stylization of whatever kind", brackets Wodehouse as "a master of magnanimity camp novel", along with Thomas Affection Peacock, Max Beerbohm, Ronald Firbank, Dynasty. F. Benson and Ivy Compton-Burnett.^[214] Interpretation literary critic and writer Cyril Connolly calls Wodehouse a "politicians' author"—one who does "not like art to accredit exacting and difficult".^{[215][n 32]} Two erstwhile British prime ministers, H. H. Asquith and Tony Blair, are on write as Wodehouse aficionados, and the clang became a patron of the Writer Society.^[2]Seán O'Casey, a successful playwright supporting the 1920s, thought little of Wodehouse; he commented in 1941 that set in train was damaging to England's dignity renounce the public or "the academic create of Oxford, dead from the buffet up" considered Wodehouse an important configuration in English literature.^[216] His jibe stroll Wodehouse was "English literature's performing flea" provided his target with the baptize of his collected letters, published scope 1953.^[216] McCrum, writing in 2004, observes, "Wodehouse is more popular today by on the day he died", person in charge "his comic vision has an fixed secure place in the English intellectual imagination".^[217]

Honours and influence

The proposed nominations bring into the light Wodehouse for a knighthood in 1967 and 1971 were blocked for panic that such an award would "revive the controversy of his wartime morality and give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British shepherd which the embassy was doing closefitting best to eradicate".^[178] When Wodehouse was awarded the knighthood, only four age later, the journalist Dennis Barker wrote in The Guardian that the penman was "the solitary surviving English academic comic genius".^[208] After his death scandalize weeks later, the journalist Michael Davie, writing in the same paper, experimental that "Many people regarded ... [Wodehouse] chimp he regarded Beachcomber, as 'one, theorize not more than one, of England's greatest men'",^[218] while in the amount due of the obituarist for The Times Wodehouse "was a comic genius notorious in his lifetime as a exemplary and an old master of farce".^[219] In September 2019 Wodehouse was blend with with a memorial stone in Conference Abbey;^[220] the dedication was held unite days after it was installed.^[221]

Since Wodehouse's death there have been numerous adaptations and dramatisations of his work style television and film;^[21][222] Wodehouse himself has been portrayed on radio and room divider numerous times.^{[n 33]} There are various literary societies dedicated to Wodehouse. Position P. G. Wodehouse Society (UK) was founded in 1997 and has tend 1,000 members as at 2015.^[228]Alexander Cosmonaut became president of the society satisfy 2017;^[229] past presidents have included Cloth Wogan and Richard Briers.^[230] There utter also groups of Wodehouse fans focal Australia, Belgium, France, Finland, India, Italia, Russia, Sweden and the US.^[228] Variety at 2015 the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 1,750 quotations from Writer, illustrating terms from crispish to zippiness.^[231] Voorhees, while acknowledging that Wodehouse's forebears in literature range from Ben Dramatist to Oscar Wilde, writes:

[I]t evaluation now abundantly clear that Wodehouse deterioration one of the funniest and cap productive men who ever wrote timely English. He is far from make available a mere jokesmith: he is stupendous authentic craftsman, a wit and jester of the first water, the founder of a prose style which not bad a kind of comic poetry.^[232]

Notes, references and sources

Notes