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Last edited by David Scotson
September 16, 2023 | History

P. G. Wodehouse

15 October 1881 - 14 February 1975

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) (pronounced /ˈwʊdhaʊs/) was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be widely read. 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 pre-war 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 Stephen Fry, Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith and Terry Pratchett. Journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens commented, "there is not, and never will be, anything to touch him."

Wodehouse's characters are often eccentric, with peculiar attachments, such as to pigs (Lord Emsworth), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle), antique silver (Bertie's Uncle Tom Travers), golf-collectables (numerous characters) 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.

A key figure in most Wodehouse stories is a "fixer" whose genius soars above the incompetent blather and crude bluster of most of the other characters, Jeeves being the best known example. Other characters in this vein are Lord Ickenham ("Uncle Fred") and Galahad Threepwood, who perform much the same role in the Blandings Castle stories—though never both at the same time—and Psmith, who does the same thing in the stories that bear his name.

Wodehouse was known for his consummate skill at their detailed construction and development. Typically, a relative or friend makes some demand that forces a character into a bizarre situation from which it seems impossible to recover, only to resolve itself in a clever and satisfying finale.

Source: Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse]

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  • Cover of: Summer moonshine
    First published in 1934 18 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Joy in the morning
    First published in 1946 16 editions in 3 languages — 3 previewable Cover of edition joyinmorning0000wode_d9n9 Cover of edition joyinmorning0000wode_c7b4

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  • Cover of: The luck of the Bodkins
    First published in 1935 16 editions in 1 language — 3 previewable Cover of edition luckofbodkins0000wode Cover of edition luckofbodkins00wode

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  • Cover of: Laughing gas
    First published in 1936 16 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition laughinggas00wode

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  • Cover of: The mating season
    First published in 1949 16 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition matingseason0000wode

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  • Cover of: The small bachelor
    First published in 1927 16 editions in 2 languages — 2 previewable Cover of edition smallbachelor0000wode

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  • Cover of: Mulliner nights
    First published in 1933 16 editions in 2 languages

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  • Cover of: Fill the Reckless

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  • Cover of: Not George Washington: an autobiographical novel

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  • Cover of: Money for Nothing
    First published in 1928 15 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Eggs, Beans and Crumpets

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  • Cover of: The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories

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  • Cover of: Tales of St Austin's
    First published in 1923 15 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Mike: a public school story
    First published in 1909 15 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Hot water
    First published in 1932 14 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Quick service
    First published in 1940 14 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Uncle Dynamite.
    First published in 1948 14 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition uncledynamite00wode

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  • Cover of: A Man of Means
    First published in 1993 13 editions in 1 language

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  • Cover of: Young Men in Spats

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  • Cover of: The white feather.
    First published in 1907 13 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition whitefeather0000wode

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Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
September 16, 2023 Edited by David Scotson removed some audiobook narrator names
April 14, 2023 Edited by Tom Morris Remove bad AKAs
September 3, 2021 Edited by Jenner merge authors
September 30, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot add ISNI
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import