P g wodehouse biography examples

He later wrote a humorous account of his experiences at the bank, [ 31 ] but at the time he longed for the end of each working day, when he could return to his rented lodgings in Chelsea and write. Inwith the help of a former Dulwich master, William Beach ThomasWodehouse secured an appointment—at first temporary and later permanent—writing for The Globe ' s popular "By the Way" column.

He held the post until Between the publication of The Pothunters and that of Mike inWodehouse wrote eight novels and co-wrote another two. The critic R. French writes that, of Wodehouse's work from this period, almost all that deserves to survive is the school fiction. From his boyhood Wodehouse had been fascinated by America, which he conceived of as "a land of romance"; he "yearned" to visit the country, and by he had earned enough to do so.

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

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

The two collaborated between and on two books, two music hall sketches, and a play, Brother Alfred. In early the actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to become resident lyricist at the Aldwych Theatreto add topical verses to newly imported or long-running shows. Hicks had already recruited the young Jerome Kern to write the music for such songs.

The first Kern-Wodehouse collaboration, a comic number for The Beauty of Bath titled "Mr [ Joseph ] Chamberlain", was a show-stopper and was briefly the most popular song in London. Wodehouse's early period as a writer came to an end in with the serialisation of The Lost Lambspublished the following year in book form as the second half of the novel Mike.

He sold many more stories, but none of the American publications offered a permanent relationship and guaranteed income. Between then and the outbreak of the First World War in he revisited America frequently. Wodehouse was in New York p g wodehouse biography examples the war began. Ineligible for military service because of his poor eyesight, he remained in the US throughout the war, detached from the conflict in Europe and absorbed in his theatrical and literary concerns.

The marriage proved happy and lifelong. Ethel's personality was in contrast with her husband's: he was shy and impractical; she was gregarious, decisive and well organised. In Sproat's phrase, she "took charge of Wodehouse's life and made certain that he had the peace and quiet he needed to write". Wodehouse experimented with different genres of fiction in these years; Psmith, Journalistmixing comedy with social comment on slum landlords and racketeers, was published in The Blandings Castle stories, set in an English stately home, depict the attempts of the placid Lord Emsworth to evade the many distractions around him, which include successive pairs of young lovers, the machinations of his exuberant brother Galahadthe demands of his domineering sisters and super-efficient secretaries, and anything detrimental to his prize sow, the Empress of Blandings.

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

Unlike his original model, Gilbert, Wodehouse preferred the music to be written first, fitting his words into the melodies. Wodehouse had made any real assault on the intelligence of the song-listening public. In the years after the war, Wodehouse steadily increased his sales, polished his existing characters and introduced new ones. Bertie and Jeeves, Lord Emsworth and his circle, and Ukridge appeared in novels and short stories; [ n 12 ] Psmith made his fourth and last appearance; [ n 13 ] two new characters were the Oldest Member, narrating his series of golfing stories, [ 83 ] and Mr Mulliner, telling his particularly tall tales to fellow patrons of the bar at the Angler's Rest.

The Wodehouses returned to England, where they had a house in London for some years, but Wodehouse continued to cross the Atlantic frequently, spending substantial periods in New York. Though never a naturally gregarious man, Wodehouse was more sociable in the s than at other periods. Donaldson lists among those with whom he was on friendly terms writers including A.

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

The actual work is negligible. So far, I have had eight collaborators. The system is that A. Then E. The contract started in Maybut the studio found little for Wodehouse to do, and he had spare time to write a novel and nine short stories. He commented, "It's odd how soon one comes to look on every minute as wasted that is given to earning one's salary.

His only other credits were minimal, and the other projects he worked on were not produced. Wodehouse's contract ended after a year and was not renewed. Wodehouse was described by Herbert Warren Wind as "politically naive [and] fundamentally unworldly", [ 94 ] and he caused a sensation by saying publicly what he had already told his friends privately about Hollywood's p g wodehouse biography examples, arbitrary decision-making, and waste of expensive talent.

The interview was reprinted in The New York Timesand there was much editorial comment about the state of the film industry. Biographers including Donaldson, McCrum and Phelps suggest that his unworldliness was only part of a complex character, and that in some respects he was highly astute. During the s Wodehouse's theatrical work tailed off.

He wrote or adapted four plays for the West End; Leave it to Psmithwhich he adapted in collaboration with Ian Hay, was the only one to have a long run. They cannot be got into a play and they are at least half the fun of the novels. There is no question that in making Mr P. Wodehouse a doctor of letters the University has done the right and popular thing.

Everyone knows at least some of his many works and has felt all the better for the gaiety of his wit and the freshness of his style. In Wodehouse created the last of his regular cast of principal characters, Lord Ickenham, otherwise known as Uncle Fredwho, in Usborne's words, "leads the dance in four novels and a short story Other leading literary figures who admired Wodehouse were A.

HousmanMax Beerbohm and Hilaire Belloc ; [ 21 ] on the radio and in print Belloc called Wodehouse "the best writer of our time: the best living writer of English Two miles from home their car broke down, so they returned and borrowed a car from a neighbour; with the routes blocked with refugees, they returned home again. Wodehouse's family and friends had not had any news of his p g wodehouse biography examples after the fall of France, but an article from an Associated Press reporter who had visited Tost in December led to pressure on the German authorities to release the novelist.

This included a petition from influential people in the US; Senator W. Warren Barbour presented it to the German ambassador. Although his captors refused to release him, Wodehouse was provided with a typewriter and, to pass the time, he wrote Money in the Bank. These were the families of Canadian prisoners of war, and the news from Wodehouse was the first indication that their sons were alive and well.

Wodehouse risked severe punishment for the communication, but managed to evade the German censor. I never was interested in politics. I'm quite unable to work up any kind of belligerent feeling. Just as I'm about to feel belligerent about some country I meet a decent sort of chap. We go out together and lose any fighting thoughts or feelings. On 21 Junewhile he was in the middle of playing a game of cricket, Wodehouse received a visit from two members of the Gestapo.

He was given ten minutes to pack his things before he was taken to the Hotel Adlona top luxury hotel in Berlin. He stayed there at his own expense; royalties from the German editions of his books had been put into a special frozen bank account at the outset of the war, and Wodehouse was permitted to draw upon this money he had earned while staying in Berlin.

The reaction in Britain to Wodehouse's broadcasts was hostile, and he was "reviled He hadn't the guts On 15 July the journalist William Connorunder his pen name Cassandra, broadcast a postscript to the news programme railing against Wodehouse. Inhe took up legal residence in France, to avoid double taxation on his earnings by the tax authorities in Britain and the U.

He was also profoundly uninterested in politics and world affairs. When World War II broke out in he remained at his seaside home in Le Touquet, Franceinstead of returning to England, apparently failing to recognize the seriousness of the conflict. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans in and interred by them for a year, first in Belgiumthen at Tost now Toszek in Upper Silesia now in Poland.

While at Tost, he entertained his fellow prisoners with witty dialogues. After his release 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. Milneauthor 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. 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 had no children.

He became an American citizen in and never returned to his homeland, spending the remainder of his life in Remsenburg, Long Island. It is widely believed that the honor was not given earlier because of lingering resentment about the German broadcasts. In a BBC interview he said that he had no ambitions left now that he had 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 the same article, Wodehouse names some contemporary humorists whom he held in high regard. These include Frank Sullivan, A. Herbert, and Alex Atkinson. Two essays in Tales of St. 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. Wodehouse was recommended in 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 are doing our best to eradicate. Wodehouse's characters are often eccentric, with peculiar attachments, such as to pigs Lord Emsworthnewts Gussie Fink-Nottleor 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 upper class give rise to plot complications. Murphy, an English member of TWS before his death instood out as a leading Wodehouse authority, serving as a consultant on the Globe Reclamation Project and the author of a long series of contributions to Wodehouse scholarship.

Starting with In Search of BlandingsNorman Murphy profoundly informed our understanding of Wodehouse as a fictionist deeply immersed in a real world which is oft-times oddly angled and reflected in his fiction. The two volume set, A Wodehouse Handbook available in a second edition is an encyclopedic guide to the real world of Victorian and Edwardian living that frames so much of Wodehouse's fictional world.

A Wodehouse Miscellany augments that guidance to all things Wodehousian, or Wodehousean, as Colonel Murphy would prefer it. The same encyclopedic, might not one modernly say wikipedic, guidance accompanies Murphy's Phrases and Notes. This is an annotated transcription of Wodehouse's earliest known writer's notebooks made by Plum at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Finally, but not least, is N. Murphy's The Reminiscences of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood. Here Murphy turned his hand to what might be called Wodehouse historical fiction, revealing at last the story of Parsloe and the prawns while combining countless true anecdotes of the real Pelican Club with Gally's fictional reminiscences. Such is his contribution that the Society has established an award in his honor.

Another and not lesser light of modern Wodehouse scholarship is Tony Ring. Tony Ring collaborated with Barry Day, a Wodehousian musical theater expert, to author the biographic P. Wodehouse In His Own Words. Ring's indefatigable efforts to preserve and highlight the best of the least known of Wodehouse's work was applied to his short story fiction in the rare twelve volume set of Plum Stones.

Finally, and by far the most useful of Wodehouse reference materials, is The Millennium Wodehouse Concordancea richly illustrated eight volume set of Wodehouse names, places, things, words, and allusions, inter aliaoriginally two books, Wooster's World and Blandings the Blestby Geoffrey Jaggard. When death prevented Mr. Jaggard from completing his planned comprehensive treatment of the full canon, Tony Ring was able to acquire the late author's extensive notes and complete the project.

Full marks to Ring for completing this immense task so brilliantly and publishing the eight books in this invaluable set.

P g wodehouse biography examples

The connection between Mr. Ring and our knowledge of Wodehouse in the theater is substantial. Sadly lacking the musical notations, most of which would be by the incomparable Jerome Kern, and which are available in other Kern music sources, but accompanied by wonderful illustrations and insightful comments of the many shows, this collection of lyrics shows Plum's mastery of rhyming lyrics to be brilliant.

Another valuable contribution to the study of Wodehouse in the theater was compiled by David A. Jasen, the Wodehouse biographer, in The Theater of P. Wodehouse, published in Hard-copy books of Plum's several plays are extant. A contemporary adapter, Ms. Margaret Raether, has also done very good work in taking Plum's characters, words, plots, and scenes to the stage in a series of plays.

And in Paul R. Highly topical and well-annotated, they show Plum's early mastery of the comedic lyric. As a direct link from the stage to film in the s and s, P. Wodehouse and Hollywood: Screenwriting, Satires and Adaptations by the late Brian Taves, who was an erudite Library of Congress Film Curator and highly respected TWS member whose work, stands alone in its treatment of Wodehouse's brief but dramatic career in Hollywood.

Ethel then went to New York to pursue a career as an actress, and it was there she met Wodehouse and they fell in love. When war broke out the Wodehouses were living in a villa they had bought in Le Touquet. As the German armies swept through France, many British residents fled to the coast and managed to return home. The Wodehouses were amongst those who preferred to wait, but they were taken aback by the speed of the German advance and their belated attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Throughout the early summer of Wodehouse continued with his writing, walked the dogs, enjoyed crumpets for tea and hoped for the best. He also had to report to the German authorities every day. Then one morning he was escorted home and given a short time to pack up his belongings. He packed his clothes, pens and scribbling pads together with the complete works of Shakespeare and the poems of Tennyson.

While Ethel was allowed to remain free in occupied France, he now found himself in a prison in Loos which he described in great detail in his notebook. Wodehouse was interviewed by an American journalist before his country had entered the war. He did, however, accept some privileges.