The residence of Mr. Peter Pett, the well-known financier, on Riverside Drive, is one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents’ worth of fresh air … Continue reading A Centenary of Piccadilly Jim
So you’d like to give P.G. Wodehouse a try, but don’t know where to start. Or perhaps you’ve read the Jeeves stories and want to explore Wodehouse’s wonderful wider world.
You’ve come to the right place. Continue reading P.G. Wodehouse reading guide
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 Holmes. Their meeting was recounted by Arthur Conan Doyle in the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet (1887). Some years later, the young Wodehouse became an avid reader of these stories, and his early work is littered with Holmesian references. In The Adventure … Continue reading The birth of P.G. Wodehouse and Sherlock Holmes
A dash of Wodehouse is always a great gift idea. This seasonal piece offers a few ideas to help you choose something special for the Wodehouse lover in your life — or for those poor souls of your acquaintance who … Continue reading Wodehouse for Christmas: gifts that keep giving
“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 author of Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, Faulks has risked the ire of Wodehouse fans (already disgrunted after the BBC Blandings fiasco) and potentially his own reputation as a writer. For one of the problems with imitating Wodehouse in the 21st Century is that … Continue reading A matter of style: Wodehouse and the modern rules of writing.
Last week, I began a series exploring ‘Wodehouse on Women’ in response to criticism of Indian Summer of an Uncle by Janet Cameron. In Part 1, I opened the case for the defence by demonstrating that Wodehouse did not specifically exclude women as complex characters in his work. One Wodehouse expert has added further evidence, noting that several Wodehouse novels featured well-developed female central characters. The Adventures of Sally (1922) is a good example. Today, I address the next item on the charge sheet. ‘Men are portrayed as being in league against women’ Cameron writes: ‘the male characters (are shown … Continue reading Wodehouse on women: Bachelors Anonymous
Mrs Pett, like most other people, subconsciously held the view that the ruder a person is the more efficient he must be. It is but rarely that anyone is found who is not dazzled by the glamour of incivility. Piccadilly Jim I’m bitterly well-acquainted with the ‘glamour of incivility‘. Shop assistants and waiters seem particularly susceptible to its charms. I, on the other hand, am immune. Picture, if you will, an orderly line of shoppers at a supermarket checkout. After a reasonable wait, it is my turn and I attempt to place my small handful of items before the checkout … Continue reading The glamour of incivility
Plumtopia 