Love in the Time of Wodehouse: Chiefly About Chickens

For some years now, I’ve been pushing the idea, aided and abetted by a gang of like-minded eggs, that Valentine’s Day should be commemorated as the anniversary of P.G. Wodehouse’s death in 1975. I’m a persistent sort of blighter, so here we are again in 2020. This year, I was curious to take a look …

A Centenary of A Damsel in Distress

'I've a headache.' 'I thought you would have, laddie, when I saw you getting away with the liquid last night. An X-ray photograph of your liver would show something that looked like a crumpled oak-leaf studded with hob-nails. You ought to take more exercise, dear heart. Except for sloshing that policeman, you haven't done anything …

Never mind the Aunts: P.G. Wodehouse’s fictional fathers are stinkers too

"If you think a busy man like myself has time to go rubbing your father, either with or against the grain, you are greatly mistaken."

A Centenary of My Man Jeeves

My Man Jeeves was published 100 years ago in May 1919. Jeeves--my man, you know--is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked "Inquiries." …

Tales from the Junior Lipstick: the F. of the S. — Part III

...when an impressionable young girl saves a chap from drowning, she naturally takes a proprietorial interest in his progress. Our story continues, narrated by Hilda Gudgeon from her comfortable chair in the smoking room of the Junior Lipstick: Eustacia Bellows is in love after a chance encounter with her childhood chum Cyril Pomfrey-Waddelow (and his …

Tales from the Junior Lipstick: the F. of the S.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being more d. than the m. P.G. Wodehouse ~ Right Ho, Jeeves With Ben Schott's recent homage to Wodehouse, Jeeves and the King of …

P.G. Wodehouse: P.I. Writer

‘The effect on her of a dark, keen-eyed man like Adrian Mulliner, who spoke well and easily of footprints, psychology and the underworld, must have been stupendous.’

‘The Smile That Wins’ (Mulliner Nights)

Great piece on Private Investigators in P.G. Wodehouse’s writing from The New Thrilling Detective blog.

The New Thrilling Detective Web Site

By Rudyard Kennedy

“Consider the case of Henry Pifield Rice… I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader’s interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford’s International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He had never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about bloodstains would have filled a library.”
— a typical Wodehouse sleuth, in “Bill the Bloodhound”

 

P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) wrote nearly 100 books, almost all of them comic novels. He’s best known, of course, for creating Jeeves, the ultimate valet (or as he would have it, the ultimate “gentleman’s gentleman”), as well as other memorable figures…

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P.G. Wodehouse Reference Guide for Political Commentary

The name P.G. Wodehouse is seeing a resurgence in the somewhat unlikely arena of online political commentary, particularly in Britain.  This puts some people -- those who’ve never read any Wodehouse, but seem determined to lug him into the row -- at a disadvantage. So I’ve put together this handy reference guide to help anyone …

Top 50 P.G Wodehouse romances (voted by readers)

This February, I asked readers to nominate their favourite romances from the world of P.G. Wodehouse and to cast their votes in numerous polls on Twitter and Facebook. It’s an admittedly frivolous exercise, but we Wodehouse fans need not be steeped to the gills with serious purpose all the time. If our comments and discussion …

Happy P.G. Wodehouse Day!

What Ho, and Happy P.G. Wodehouse Day everyone! That’s what I’m calling Valentine’s Day this year. And why not? It’s a good day for it. Saint Valentine can’t expect all the attention for himself. Nor can he bally well object -- as the Patron Saint of affianced couples, love, and marriage -- to us celebrating …