P.G. Wodehouse reading list: the Blandings stories

Lord Emsworth breathed heavily. He had not supposed that in these degenerate days a family like this existed. The sister copped Angus McAllister on the shin with stones, the brother bit Constance in the leg . . . It was like listening to some grand saga of the exploits of heroes and demigods. 'Lord Emsworth …

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The birth of P.G. Wodehouse and Sherlock Holmes

PGW quoted this famous character from his third book up to his ninety-third and had a tremendous admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle. N.T.P. Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook On the 15th of October, 1881, P.G. Wodehouse was born in Guildford , England. Coincidentally, 1881 was also the year in which Dr. John Watson first met Sherlock …

Moments when one needs a drink (Barmy in Wonderland)

'There are moments when one needs a drink. Are there moments, indeed, when one doesn't?' So says Mervyn Potter, Hollywood heart-throb, who leads poor Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps astray in Barmy in Wonderland (1952). But before you start quoting these sentiments as the views of the author himself, have look at what happens to the frequently pie-eyed …

A matter of style: Wodehouse and the modern rules of writing.

"I am no stranger to butterfly belly. A man who has had to pass himself off as Gussie Fink-Nottle to four aunts in a chilly Hampshire dining room with only orange juice in the carburettor knows the meaning of fear." Jeeves and the Wedding Bells Sebastian Faulks presumably knows the feeling pretty well too. As …

The desert island pickings of a quadragenarian

Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen a good deal of trouble. The Man with Two Left Feet (1917) I feel much like Henry did, as …

Cocktail Time

There had fallen upon the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest one of those soothing silences which from time to time punctuate the nightly feasts of Reason and flows of Soul in that cosy resort. It was broken by a Whiskey and Splash. "I've been thinking a lot," said the Whiskey and Splash... Cats will Be …