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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: Right Ho, Jeeves
    First published in 1934 62 editions in 2 languages — 5 previewable Cover of edition brinkleymanor00wode Cover of edition righthojeeves0000wode_m1s3 Cover of edition righthojeeves0000wode_f0r9 Cover of edition righthojeeve00wode

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  • Cover of: The code of the Woosters
    First published in 1938 34 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: The inimitable Jeeves
    First published in 1931 29 editions in 1 language — 3 previewable Cover of edition inimitablejeeves00wode_0 Cover of edition inimitablejeeves00pgwo

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  • Cover of: My man Jeeves
    First published in 1919 30 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition mymanjeeves00pgwo

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  • Cover of: My Man Jeeves (Collector's Wodehouse)

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  • Cover of: Thank you, Jeeves
    First published in 1934 28 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition thankyoujeeves0000wode_g0f1

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  • Cover of: Carry On, Jeeves (A Jeeves and Bertie Novel)

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  • Cover of: Stiff upper lip, Jeeves
    First published in 1963 24 editions in 1 language — 4 previewable Cover of edition stiffupperlipjee00pgwo_1 Cover of edition stiffupperlipjee00pgwo Cover of edition stiffupperlipjee0000wode

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  • Cover of: Something new
    First published in 1915 49 editions in 1 language — 5 previewable Cover of edition somethingfresh0000wode_d2h2 Cover of edition somethingfresh0000wode_o9y7 Cover of edition somethingfresh0000wode Cover of edition somethingfresh0000wode_e6t7

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  • Cover of: Uneasy Money
    First published in 1917 34 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition uneasymoney00wode

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  • Cover of: Ring for Jeeves
    First published in 1953 28 editions in 1 language — 4 previewable Cover of edition ringforjeeves00wode Cover of edition ringforjeeves0000wode_f7l7 Cover of edition returnofjeeves00wode

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  • Cover of: Leave it to Psmith
    First published in 1923 22 editions in 2 languages — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Very good, Jeeves
    First published in 1930 22 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: A Damsel in Distress
    First published in 1900 48 editions in 1 language — 4 previewable Cover of edition damselindistress0000wode_f9w0 Cover of edition damselindistress0000wode Cover of edition damseldistresswo00wode

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  • Cover of: Love Among the Chickens
    First published in 1908 41 editions in 2 languages — 2 previewable Cover of edition loveamongchicken0000wode

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  • Cover of: Sunset at Blandings
    First published in 1977 10 editions in 1 language — 2 previewable Cover of edition sunsetatblanding00wode_0

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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: Blandings Castle, and elsewhere
    First published in 1935 9 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Ghostly: a collection of ghost stories

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  • Cover of: Jeeves in the offing
    First published in 1960 30 editions in 1 language — 5 previewable Cover of edition jeevesinoffing0000wode Cover of edition jeevesinoffing0000wode_e4r9 Cover of edition howrightyouareje00wode Cover of edition jeevesoffingajee00wode

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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