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P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
One of the funniest writers of the 20th century, PG Wodehouse shied away from a biography. Drawing on unpublished sources, this definitive edition of his letters gives an unrivalled insight into his life and his comic creations. Covering his schooldays, his family's financial troubles, his musical comedy career in New York and the unhappy episode when, interned by the Germans, he was accused of broadcasting Nazi propaganda, it is a book every fan of Jeeves and Wooster will want.
602 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
40 people are currently reading
517 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,550 books6,844 followersSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. 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 prewar 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 more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
January 10, 2023
Simply wonderful. Although I enjoy biographies and memoirs, until now I hadn't read any letter collections. This long, well-assembled and well-annotated collection made for an intimate look at one of my very favorite authors.
One of things I found most intriguing is that, even into his final years, he regularly mentioned the trouble he had "getting plots". For such a prolific author, this came as the biggest surprise to me as I was reading.
I already knew he was an animal lover, but it was still delightful to see how often he referred to his pets and those of others in his letters, asking for updates on "the Pug" or trying to win someone over to dachshunds.
His letters to his step-daughter were among the most entertaining of the bunch, and his devotion to his wife throughout their 61 years of marriage was beautifully portrayed; he wrote her love letters until the end.
Not every letter portrays him in his best light. The man wasn't perfect. He obsessed over money, he criticized other writers, some of them his friends, and he didn't take criticism well (he also encouraged his fellow writers, wrote fan mail to some of them and regularly sent money to fellow author William Townend). This to me just makes the collection as a whole ring true.
As the book drew to close and I was reading through the last letters he wrote in his life, I found myself mourning a person who died when I was a child and years away from even hearing about him.
This was a fabulous representation of Wodehouse's life and relationships and a complete joy to read.
One of things I found most intriguing is that, even into his final years, he regularly mentioned the trouble he had "getting plots". For such a prolific author, this came as the biggest surprise to me as I was reading.
I already knew he was an animal lover, but it was still delightful to see how often he referred to his pets and those of others in his letters, asking for updates on "the Pug" or trying to win someone over to dachshunds.
His letters to his step-daughter were among the most entertaining of the bunch, and his devotion to his wife throughout their 61 years of marriage was beautifully portrayed; he wrote her love letters until the end.
Not every letter portrays him in his best light. The man wasn't perfect. He obsessed over money, he criticized other writers, some of them his friends, and he didn't take criticism well (he also encouraged his fellow writers, wrote fan mail to some of them and regularly sent money to fellow author William Townend). This to me just makes the collection as a whole ring true.
As the book drew to close and I was reading through the last letters he wrote in his life, I found myself mourning a person who died when I was a child and years away from even hearing about him.
This was a fabulous representation of Wodehouse's life and relationships and a complete joy to read.
March 12, 2013
I believe I am as besotted and as intemperate a Wodehouse fan as any extant. I first happily stumbled upon the Plum canon back in 1972, whilst hobnobbing with the proletariat as an ordinary seaman on a Great Lakes freighter. Seemly conversation and reading matter were in scant supply, and the only actual books aboard, mostly scarily hard-core pornography (I will say no more but we’re talking real crimes against nature here), were furnished as a charitable service by a Buffalo used book store. It was then that, buried in a pile of bestiality-themed fictions, I disinterred a copy of "Joy in the Morning"—and consequently was hooked on Wodehouse for life. (It was only many years later that I learned that he wrote this immortally comic masterpiece while interned by his German captors during World War II.) That said, I can’t very heartily recommend this carefully edited and very well annotated collection of his letters. Wodehouse was, in Sean O’Casey’s disparaging but not inaccurate phrase, a consummate “performing flea,” but in his everyday epistles—as opposed to the highly embroidered and supplemented “letters” he published during his lifetime—he understandably and largely shed his role as public comedian for a more mundane and directly human persona. Hence, this generous anthology of his personal correspondence (there are also some samples of his dealings as a professional writer) is replete with the mostly undramatic circumstances of his daily life and the details, predominately financial, of his literary output and negotiations. Alas, such minutiae are not very compelling in bulk and one soon begins to pine for jokes and witticisms of the Jeeves-Wooster/Emsworth/Psmith ilk. When all is said and done, P. G. Wodehouse was, above all, a tirelessly professional writer—indeed, a veritable authorial workaholic—and his deceptively effortless and unceasing output of fictional mirth was the product of stupendously hard work and a keen and unfailing concern for monetary reward. Thus he gave his true soul to that work and saved little of it for his more personal communications. It is not for nothing that premier Wodehouse biographer Robert McCrumb characterized the private Wodehouse a “laureate of repression.” Editor Sophie Ratcliffe has done a commendable job at reconstructing Wodehouse’s life, but it remains a dutiful slog and most readers will be better served and far more entertained by a perusal of Wodehouse’s own hilarious—if not entirely factual—autobiographical works: Bring on the Girls, Over Seventy and Performing Flea. In summary: only for Wodehouse compleatists.
February 21, 2012
This is the third volume of PGW letters to have been published and the most successful. First in 1953 came Performing Flea, a collection of letters PGW sent to Bill Townend, Wodehouse oversaw this collection himself rewriting and polishing many of the letters. Next in 1990 came Yours Plum what would be best described as a collection of brief extracts, arranged, not chronologically but by subject. The earlier works do still contain material that is not in the present volume. But the present volume contains many, many letters that have not been printed before.
The letters here are still edited but what is left (and there is an awful lot left) turns out to make a remarkably readable autobiography of the author. The individual letters might not be as polished as PGW's fiction but they are still clearly 100% Wodehouse and consequentiality highly entertaining. They range from Wodehouse's school days to within days of his death at 93.
The letters here are still edited but what is left (and there is an awful lot left) turns out to make a remarkably readable autobiography of the author. The individual letters might not be as polished as PGW's fiction but they are still clearly 100% Wodehouse and consequentiality highly entertaining. They range from Wodehouse's school days to within days of his death at 93.
January 4, 2020
I have often wondered about the ethics of reading the letters of famous writers which they surely did not intend for consumption of the general public, and offer glimpses into their regular lives than insights into how their minds channelled and created art. Wodehouse was an exceptional writer in so many ways and this collection of letters offers the reader a peek into the brilliant mind which has given the world so much pleasure through his delightful characters and masterly usage of the English language.
The collection commences with a wonderful introduction and gives the reader a tour of the great writer's life through his letters to friends, family - especially his beloved wife and daughter, literary agents and publishers, and fellow authors among others. It could have done without cutting out large parts of many letters which took away much of their context. Overall it is an interesting read that shows the person behind the artist and evokes the idyllic Wodehousian world as well as bygone times when letter writing was an art by itself.
The collection commences with a wonderful introduction and gives the reader a tour of the great writer's life through his letters to friends, family - especially his beloved wife and daughter, literary agents and publishers, and fellow authors among others. It could have done without cutting out large parts of many letters which took away much of their context. Overall it is an interesting read that shows the person behind the artist and evokes the idyllic Wodehousian world as well as bygone times when letter writing was an art by itself.
September 10, 2020
A gorgeous glimpse at the life of one of my favourite authors. Although I haven't read much of Blandings to date, I just love Jeeves and Bertie. This collection of his letters to fans, friends, family and colleagues shows what a genuinely nice guy he was (except when he gets a dodgy review from an upstart critic). Throughout his life in England, France and America he mixed with the creme de lá creme of the literary, theatrical and cinematic sphere but was seemingly very grounded about it all. I read this in tandem with The Inimitable Jeeves and it renewed my love of Bertie and Jeeves especially knowing how much thought, effort and revision Plum put into all his stories.
October 10, 2022
I know there are people who probably have read more Wodehouse works, know more about his personal life and history, have a deeper understanding of his place in British and world literature … but, man, I don’t think anyone can claim to appreciate more than I do the feeling of simply immersing oneself in the most recently acquired piece of Wodehousian scribbling and finding as much pure enjoyment and satisfaction in every last nuance, pen stroke, descriptor, quip, aside, strategic omission, quirky character trait, silly self-seriousness … I’d better stop here before the list eats up too much memory on the server.
My point is, Wodehouse is my go-to anytime I’m needing a literary pick-me-up, and so this biography was a long time coming. (P.S. I just visited his Long Island home, neighborhood, and grave this past summer, took the walk that he took on the daily to the Post Office in the latter part of his career, and reverently donated my precious G2 .07 Blue Pilot Gel Pen to his headstone … so, yeah, you may have me beat in your Wodehouse fandom on many fronts, but I’m thinking I may be the only one to hit that unique, ritualistic, Plum pilgrimage!)
Rather than a straight-forward biography, something that would be far too boring and non-P.G. Wodehousian (who actually, with a single exception, lived a fairly boring life), Sophie Ratcliffe has gathered together relevant and timely letters written by the master himself to various friends, associates, family members, and business colleagues and organizes them chronologically as they relate to specific periods of his writing career and life. She introduces us into each decade of his life (give or take) with a brief explanation of what happens to him and with whom he corresponds, then she gets out of the way and lets Wodehouse do the talking. What a delightful way to get to know someone, especially someone as prolific in scribbling as Wodehouse himself.
What emerges is someone that is strongly passionate about his job. For all the silliness in his writing, I don’t know that you will find someone more serious about his writing. The ridiculous plotlines, the buffoonish characters, the zany situations … all of them are meticulously mulled about and fussed over, none of them are thrown out there frivolously as cheap money grabs. Details, for example, about where a politician might plausibly meet with his political partners to play out a ludicrous scheme, are researched with the care of someone writing an investigative report. Whether that particular plot point lands or not (I’m not sure it even made the final cut), that kind of loving devotion to his craft says loads more about his ultimate decades of continuous success than anything else.
Some of the most fun aspects of the reading were seeing Wodehouse talk up the next novel he was working on in some letter, and then I would giddily recognize it from having read it (Oh! This is where that character started. Or, This is the start of these kinds of stories!). How cool it is to see the beginnings of the writing process work their way through a genius mind. Then, maybe even more fun, was seeing the titles of works that I had not yet read and then pausing my reading to pick those up to read. Talk about your solid book recommendations! (I eventually had to stop this method because I needed to actually finish the biography at some point, and pausing for each book he mentions that I haven’t read meant that it would probably take me as many years to get through it as he lived … and I don’t think I have the time for that!)
Other gems garnered from this biography were his non-novel/short story writing careers. Through his years working in Hollywood, Wodehouse takes away some of the glitz of that burgeoning business and reveals a lot of their general incompetence (as he is paid to basically do nothing, or to revise dialogue just to have his revisions jettisoned). Wodehouse’s working on Broadway constitutes a huge part of his life that is not as recognizable today because of the shifting nature of Broadway shows. Yet his name mingled (as he did) with the greats: Rogers & Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Guy Bolton, Jerome Kern, even Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice (towards the end of his career). Had he not written a single novel, Wodehouse still would have left a mark (albeit not as glaringly enduring) on the entertainment industry with his talents.
The devastatingly sad Wodehouse experience from World War II is aptly covered in this biography, and remains a heart-wrenching sample of the passionate irrationality of war-time extremes of propaganda and anti-propaganda. Wodehouse, living in France at the time of WWII and then captured by the Nazis and sent to an internment camp (and writing some silly stories while there), then manages to secure his release by turning sixty, is offered to record some radio programs in Berlin. Wodehouse agrees and records some perfectly harmless recordings detailing the silly side of internment while managing to avoid criticizing his captors. This is somehow labeled as traitorous, and when Wodehouse is finally able to leave the continent once the war is over, he is shocked by the outrage his benign recordings invoked. He would never return to England again. What a loss for them!
Instead, he becomes an American (another one of our greatest victories from that war), lives in New York, then finally settles comfortably on Long Island (the home I visited). From here, Ms. Ratcliffe jumps decades in a seeming wink of the eye, Wodehouse’s knighthood and final years zip past with hardly a mention and then it all ends.
I suppose I just did not want to let go of Plum after being so invested in him for so long, but perhaps Ms. Ratcliffe felt that all of the major beats of Wodehouse’s personal life and career had come and gone already, and she probably had a length limit from her publishers … but still. Ending so quickly forces the negative experience of WWII to loom disproportionately through the shortened final decades of his life, and his redemption in the form of knighthood is barely mentioned in the notes and only obtusely referenced in the letters. I would be shocked if the correspondence we read are the only ones where he wrote about it.
Ms. Ratcliffe’s insistence on only including Wodehouse’s writings and never what other people wrote to him is a) understandable given length restrictions as well the focus of the biography itself; and b) frustrating. I mean, who cares if it isn’t Plum’s specific writing itself, I want to see the letter from the Queen Mother to Wodehouse! Or from some of the other famous authors he corresponded with (i.e., Agatha Christie, George Orwell, Arthur Conan Doyle, etcetera). Still, it’s a small qualm. In principle, I get it.
And overall, what a lovely way to get to know the boring life of a vastly amusing and immensely talented individual. You could not do this with a lot of biographies, and yet perhaps more biographers should find a way to write about their subjects in ways that are most fitting to the particular talents, life, and experiences of the people they write on.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, after having charged through that Wodehouse biography, I’ve got A LOT of titles I need to go back and find to add to my inexhaustible reading list!
My point is, Wodehouse is my go-to anytime I’m needing a literary pick-me-up, and so this biography was a long time coming. (P.S. I just visited his Long Island home, neighborhood, and grave this past summer, took the walk that he took on the daily to the Post Office in the latter part of his career, and reverently donated my precious G2 .07 Blue Pilot Gel Pen to his headstone … so, yeah, you may have me beat in your Wodehouse fandom on many fronts, but I’m thinking I may be the only one to hit that unique, ritualistic, Plum pilgrimage!)
Rather than a straight-forward biography, something that would be far too boring and non-P.G. Wodehousian (who actually, with a single exception, lived a fairly boring life), Sophie Ratcliffe has gathered together relevant and timely letters written by the master himself to various friends, associates, family members, and business colleagues and organizes them chronologically as they relate to specific periods of his writing career and life. She introduces us into each decade of his life (give or take) with a brief explanation of what happens to him and with whom he corresponds, then she gets out of the way and lets Wodehouse do the talking. What a delightful way to get to know someone, especially someone as prolific in scribbling as Wodehouse himself.
What emerges is someone that is strongly passionate about his job. For all the silliness in his writing, I don’t know that you will find someone more serious about his writing. The ridiculous plotlines, the buffoonish characters, the zany situations … all of them are meticulously mulled about and fussed over, none of them are thrown out there frivolously as cheap money grabs. Details, for example, about where a politician might plausibly meet with his political partners to play out a ludicrous scheme, are researched with the care of someone writing an investigative report. Whether that particular plot point lands or not (I’m not sure it even made the final cut), that kind of loving devotion to his craft says loads more about his ultimate decades of continuous success than anything else.
Some of the most fun aspects of the reading were seeing Wodehouse talk up the next novel he was working on in some letter, and then I would giddily recognize it from having read it (Oh! This is where that character started. Or, This is the start of these kinds of stories!). How cool it is to see the beginnings of the writing process work their way through a genius mind. Then, maybe even more fun, was seeing the titles of works that I had not yet read and then pausing my reading to pick those up to read. Talk about your solid book recommendations! (I eventually had to stop this method because I needed to actually finish the biography at some point, and pausing for each book he mentions that I haven’t read meant that it would probably take me as many years to get through it as he lived … and I don’t think I have the time for that!)
Other gems garnered from this biography were his non-novel/short story writing careers. Through his years working in Hollywood, Wodehouse takes away some of the glitz of that burgeoning business and reveals a lot of their general incompetence (as he is paid to basically do nothing, or to revise dialogue just to have his revisions jettisoned). Wodehouse’s working on Broadway constitutes a huge part of his life that is not as recognizable today because of the shifting nature of Broadway shows. Yet his name mingled (as he did) with the greats: Rogers & Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Guy Bolton, Jerome Kern, even Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice (towards the end of his career). Had he not written a single novel, Wodehouse still would have left a mark (albeit not as glaringly enduring) on the entertainment industry with his talents.
The devastatingly sad Wodehouse experience from World War II is aptly covered in this biography, and remains a heart-wrenching sample of the passionate irrationality of war-time extremes of propaganda and anti-propaganda. Wodehouse, living in France at the time of WWII and then captured by the Nazis and sent to an internment camp (and writing some silly stories while there), then manages to secure his release by turning sixty, is offered to record some radio programs in Berlin. Wodehouse agrees and records some perfectly harmless recordings detailing the silly side of internment while managing to avoid criticizing his captors. This is somehow labeled as traitorous, and when Wodehouse is finally able to leave the continent once the war is over, he is shocked by the outrage his benign recordings invoked. He would never return to England again. What a loss for them!
Instead, he becomes an American (another one of our greatest victories from that war), lives in New York, then finally settles comfortably on Long Island (the home I visited). From here, Ms. Ratcliffe jumps decades in a seeming wink of the eye, Wodehouse’s knighthood and final years zip past with hardly a mention and then it all ends.
I suppose I just did not want to let go of Plum after being so invested in him for so long, but perhaps Ms. Ratcliffe felt that all of the major beats of Wodehouse’s personal life and career had come and gone already, and she probably had a length limit from her publishers … but still. Ending so quickly forces the negative experience of WWII to loom disproportionately through the shortened final decades of his life, and his redemption in the form of knighthood is barely mentioned in the notes and only obtusely referenced in the letters. I would be shocked if the correspondence we read are the only ones where he wrote about it.
Ms. Ratcliffe’s insistence on only including Wodehouse’s writings and never what other people wrote to him is a) understandable given length restrictions as well the focus of the biography itself; and b) frustrating. I mean, who cares if it isn’t Plum’s specific writing itself, I want to see the letter from the Queen Mother to Wodehouse! Or from some of the other famous authors he corresponded with (i.e., Agatha Christie, George Orwell, Arthur Conan Doyle, etcetera). Still, it’s a small qualm. In principle, I get it.
And overall, what a lovely way to get to know the boring life of a vastly amusing and immensely talented individual. You could not do this with a lot of biographies, and yet perhaps more biographers should find a way to write about their subjects in ways that are most fitting to the particular talents, life, and experiences of the people they write on.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, after having charged through that Wodehouse biography, I’ve got A LOT of titles I need to go back and find to add to my inexhaustible reading list!
June 11, 2021
I didn’t realize how long this was when I ordered it, so when I saw its 640 pages I was a little daunted. With that in mind, how sad I felt turning the last page is a testimony to how delightful time “in company” with PG Wodehouse is.
Obviously this isn’t something you’ll likely pick up unless you’re already a devoted Wodehouse fan, which I am. His books have smoothed so many rocky and stressful times in my life by making me laugh like few other books can.
It’s staggering to think that he wrote some of them while imprisoned by the Nazis and then suffering through the privations of the war. The story of the comedic broadcasts he did for German radio is definitely one of the most controversial and interesting parts of his life story. My impression is that, like many comedians, he really couldn’t face the reality of how evil humans can be. Couple that with being cut off from news in occupied France, and I really doubt he knew how bad the Nazi atrocities had become. It sounds like he regretted his naïveté for the rest of his life.
Wodehouse was not a perfect person, and I appreciated that the editor didn’t try to make him seem like he was. I cringed at some of his choices and attitudes, but it gave me a chance to reflect on the society he lived in as well as my own and how it influences me.
My one complaint with the book is that it ends suddenly with Wodehouse’s last known letter. I wish the editor had ended with some biographical facts of when he died and some details of his wife Ethel and the other main people in the book.
Overall, reading a few pages of this every day has been a lighthearted breath of fresh air that I’m going to miss. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near finishing all 100+ books that Wodehouse published in his lifetime!
Obviously this isn’t something you’ll likely pick up unless you’re already a devoted Wodehouse fan, which I am. His books have smoothed so many rocky and stressful times in my life by making me laugh like few other books can.
It’s staggering to think that he wrote some of them while imprisoned by the Nazis and then suffering through the privations of the war. The story of the comedic broadcasts he did for German radio is definitely one of the most controversial and interesting parts of his life story. My impression is that, like many comedians, he really couldn’t face the reality of how evil humans can be. Couple that with being cut off from news in occupied France, and I really doubt he knew how bad the Nazi atrocities had become. It sounds like he regretted his naïveté for the rest of his life.
Wodehouse was not a perfect person, and I appreciated that the editor didn’t try to make him seem like he was. I cringed at some of his choices and attitudes, but it gave me a chance to reflect on the society he lived in as well as my own and how it influences me.
My one complaint with the book is that it ends suddenly with Wodehouse’s last known letter. I wish the editor had ended with some biographical facts of when he died and some details of his wife Ethel and the other main people in the book.
Overall, reading a few pages of this every day has been a lighthearted breath of fresh air that I’m going to miss. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near finishing all 100+ books that Wodehouse published in his lifetime!
June 27, 2016
It is unusual for me to drop a book that I rate two stars. Dropping books is generally reserved for the worst of the worst, can't get through it no matter how hard I try. And, there were many things about this volume that I wanted to like. I genuinely enjoy PG Wodehouse. Ratcliffe obviously put a lot of time, effort and energy into researching it and these bits were well written. Had this been a biography, I undoubtedly would have marked this as a 4-star. But, as it stands, it was an epistolary and an awful one at that. The editor goes to great lengths to explain that there simply wasn't room for all of the letters and in her lengthy introduction gives an idea to the people he wrote to as well as her process for chopping the letters. She reduced nearly every single one of them and noted it with a {...} so real context was utterly lost. She says she got rid of some of the more boring parts but, honestly, a lot of the more boring parts were kept in so I have no idea what she kept. That would have been a bit dry but get through-able had it not been for the copious amount of end notes and the letters chosen seemingly willy nilly. Sometimes days, sometimes months between them to different correspondents with nothing than her blurb to give you any context whatsoever. And, it's hundreds and hundreds of pages of seemingly random. The extra star was for the biography that could have been but, save yourself time and either pick up a Wodehouse book or an actual biography of this brilliant author.
Want to read
February 2, 2013Added 2/2/13
P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters (2011) Edited by Sophie Ratcliffe.
I'd like to get an audio-book version of this book.
Below is a link to a NY Times review of the book:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/boo...
Exerpts from review:
====================================
"Wodehouse was among the best-paid and best-loved writers in the world during the 1930s, a British institution... ... Wodehouse was not, alas, a very good letter writer. He isn’t reflective. He tends to ramble on numbly about his taxes, or his pets, or his daily schedule, or his fluctuating weight. The effortless humor that buoys his fiction (“Bicky rocked like a jelly in a high wind”) is largely absent here. He’s a bit of a wheeze.
... Wodehouse — it is pronounced WOOD-house"
======================================
P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters (2011) Edited by Sophie Ratcliffe.
I'd like to get an audio-book version of this book.
Below is a link to a NY Times review of the book:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/boo...
Exerpts from review:
====================================
"Wodehouse was among the best-paid and best-loved writers in the world during the 1930s, a British institution... ... Wodehouse was not, alas, a very good letter writer. He isn’t reflective. He tends to ramble on numbly about his taxes, or his pets, or his daily schedule, or his fluctuating weight. The effortless humor that buoys his fiction (“Bicky rocked like a jelly in a high wind”) is largely absent here. He’s a bit of a wheeze.
... Wodehouse — it is pronounced WOOD-house"
======================================
May 28, 2023
“Thinking of you gathered in conference as I sit mumbling over my clay pipe in my inglenook, I feel not only intensely and sincerely grateful for your interest in my oeuvre, but also a little dizzy. Am I really as good as all that, I ask myself, that citizens of sound mind gather in conference on my works? Do I inspire pity and terror, as recommended by Aristotle, or have these splendid fellows been carried away by kindness and a desire to make my nineties, gay nineties? For, let’s face it, the world I write about, always a small one - one of the smallest I ever met, as Bertie Wooster would say - is now not even small, it is nonexistent. It has gone with the wind and is one with Nineveh and Tyre. In a word, it has had it.”
Wodehouse was born in England in 1881. In 1901 (the same year that Queen Victoria died), he was just beginning what was supposed to become his career in banking. Within a couple of years he was making enough money from journalism to quit the day job he so disliked. Soon he was contributing stories to magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, as well as writing lyrics for Broadway musicals. When the movies took off, he headed to California and wrote screenplays for MGM.
In 1936 he received the Mark Twain Medal, in recognition of his “outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world.” (!!)
In 1955 he became an American citizen, and a resident of New York and the Long Island area, after a lifetime of trans-Atlantic work and travel.
In 1960 his 80th birthday was celebrated in the New York Times with notices of birthday greetings from writers including W.H. Auden, Nancy Mitford, James Thurber, Lionel Trilling, John Updike and others. He corresponded regularly with Agatha Christie, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Evelyn Waugh. Waugh even arranged a special tribute for him in 1961 to be aired on the BBC.
At his death in 1975, Wodehouse was still writing his “historical novels” about a world long gone; a world that had heaved itself through not one but two world wars, after which everything had changed. Wodehouse lived and worked through it all, navigating the changes with awkwardness at times as he learned to adjust himself and his lifestyle to a world that only seemed to speed up, grow more confusing and complicated, and less familiar with time.
This collection of letters shows the reader what this looked like, on a year by year basis. I think that in our post-covid world we can understand a little better how quickly things can change, and how the world really can become unfamiliar to us in a matter of months. And yet we keep living in it, continually adjusting ourselves and finding our way through the chaos towards our own peace within it… our own “small world.” I think this is why we still return to Blandings Castle and Bertie and Jeeves and the rest of Wodehouse’s Edwardian (and pre-Edwardian) cast of characters: this desire to find somewhere safe, a place where the worst misadventures are humorous and fixable. It might be a historical place lost to us long ago, but it still feels recognizable, somehow… it feels like an invitation to return to a slower, quieter world that used to be (… or did it?). We enjoy our visits there so much because their creator enjoyed them so much, long before we did… and he never stopped!
Wodehouse’s love for his wife and daughter, his enjoyment of his work, his many and varied friendships, his love for animals, his restless energy, and his ability to find amusement in almost any situation, are threaded all through his letters. Through his eyes and his words we see the evolution of media and entertainment in a way that seems like history, told on the slant - from the angle of a creative person working in new, growing fields. We see the effects of war from his vantage point in France, Germany, and then in America. We read about the new income tax laws and how that changed the way people worked. We read about loss and the accumulation of age and grief… and we witness his efforts to find a graceful way to live with integrity to the end.
The letters in this collection are edited so that only the parts pertaining to his own life and work (along with that of his family) are included. He wasn’t prone to the self-reflection and psychologizing that are more “normal” for us today, but over the course of years there are enough letters to enough people for the reader to get a good idea of his personality and his approach to life and work. We feel his concern for his friends and the love he had for his wife (and their pets, which was very endearing!). It was absolutely a treat to hear him talk about his work, of course - and sometimes about other people’s work, most often people we have heard of and read our whole lives! These were his contemporaries, and he was interested in their work in the same way we are interested in anything new happening or being talked about around us today.
All of this taken together, I got a great kick out of this collection. I enjoy biographies and auto-biographies (and sometimes memoirs) but a collection of letters feels more “immediate” to me, and I enjoy the telling nature of an “off-the-cuff,” hurried note. It’s an original way to get a unique feel for a small and specific slice of history. (And a little gossip along the way, lol.) It may not be a page-turner, but the whole project comes together in a formative way that I think helps me become a better reader of all kinds of books.
Oh and one last little thing worth mentioning: I’m so glad that the editor included a generous appendix complete with both references and a very helpful index!
Wodehouse was born in England in 1881. In 1901 (the same year that Queen Victoria died), he was just beginning what was supposed to become his career in banking. Within a couple of years he was making enough money from journalism to quit the day job he so disliked. Soon he was contributing stories to magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, as well as writing lyrics for Broadway musicals. When the movies took off, he headed to California and wrote screenplays for MGM.
In 1936 he received the Mark Twain Medal, in recognition of his “outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world.” (!!)
In 1955 he became an American citizen, and a resident of New York and the Long Island area, after a lifetime of trans-Atlantic work and travel.
In 1960 his 80th birthday was celebrated in the New York Times with notices of birthday greetings from writers including W.H. Auden, Nancy Mitford, James Thurber, Lionel Trilling, John Updike and others. He corresponded regularly with Agatha Christie, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Evelyn Waugh. Waugh even arranged a special tribute for him in 1961 to be aired on the BBC.
At his death in 1975, Wodehouse was still writing his “historical novels” about a world long gone; a world that had heaved itself through not one but two world wars, after which everything had changed. Wodehouse lived and worked through it all, navigating the changes with awkwardness at times as he learned to adjust himself and his lifestyle to a world that only seemed to speed up, grow more confusing and complicated, and less familiar with time.
This collection of letters shows the reader what this looked like, on a year by year basis. I think that in our post-covid world we can understand a little better how quickly things can change, and how the world really can become unfamiliar to us in a matter of months. And yet we keep living in it, continually adjusting ourselves and finding our way through the chaos towards our own peace within it… our own “small world.” I think this is why we still return to Blandings Castle and Bertie and Jeeves and the rest of Wodehouse’s Edwardian (and pre-Edwardian) cast of characters: this desire to find somewhere safe, a place where the worst misadventures are humorous and fixable. It might be a historical place lost to us long ago, but it still feels recognizable, somehow… it feels like an invitation to return to a slower, quieter world that used to be (… or did it?). We enjoy our visits there so much because their creator enjoyed them so much, long before we did… and he never stopped!
Wodehouse’s love for his wife and daughter, his enjoyment of his work, his many and varied friendships, his love for animals, his restless energy, and his ability to find amusement in almost any situation, are threaded all through his letters. Through his eyes and his words we see the evolution of media and entertainment in a way that seems like history, told on the slant - from the angle of a creative person working in new, growing fields. We see the effects of war from his vantage point in France, Germany, and then in America. We read about the new income tax laws and how that changed the way people worked. We read about loss and the accumulation of age and grief… and we witness his efforts to find a graceful way to live with integrity to the end.
The letters in this collection are edited so that only the parts pertaining to his own life and work (along with that of his family) are included. He wasn’t prone to the self-reflection and psychologizing that are more “normal” for us today, but over the course of years there are enough letters to enough people for the reader to get a good idea of his personality and his approach to life and work. We feel his concern for his friends and the love he had for his wife (and their pets, which was very endearing!). It was absolutely a treat to hear him talk about his work, of course - and sometimes about other people’s work, most often people we have heard of and read our whole lives! These were his contemporaries, and he was interested in their work in the same way we are interested in anything new happening or being talked about around us today.
All of this taken together, I got a great kick out of this collection. I enjoy biographies and auto-biographies (and sometimes memoirs) but a collection of letters feels more “immediate” to me, and I enjoy the telling nature of an “off-the-cuff,” hurried note. It’s an original way to get a unique feel for a small and specific slice of history. (And a little gossip along the way, lol.) It may not be a page-turner, but the whole project comes together in a formative way that I think helps me become a better reader of all kinds of books.
Oh and one last little thing worth mentioning: I’m so glad that the editor included a generous appendix complete with both references and a very helpful index!
Read
December 7, 2021I'm always up for a good letter collection - they typically aren't the sort of things you read straight through, but are nice to dip into here and there. This collection includes some helpful biographical sections that orient the reader, but is probably only of interest to Wodehouse fans.
April 24, 2018
This is primarily a compilation of Wodehouse's letters - with a bit of commentary from the editor. It wasn't something you sit down and read cover to cover (at least I didn't), but I read it a bit at a time and truly enjoyed it. Wodehouse is my literary hero. His stories are so effortlessly funny - it was nice to learn that he polished them up - sometimes changing lines a dozen times until they felt "effortlessly funny." He made some mistakes in his life (including broadcasting cheery messages over German radio while he was interred by the Nazi's), but he seems to have been a genuinely good man who loved his family, books, his pets, and his close friends. Probably in that order. Perfect book for a huge Wodehouse nerd like me. Thanks Tom Tutor!!
April 3, 2022
This is a complete compilation of Wodehouse’s letters; takes us back to the times when letters were an important source of historical records. Wodehouse’s letters together with the author’s explanations of background makes this an interesting read; almost a autobiography. I found the insights into Wodehouse’s life, how some of his popular books were crafted and the origin of several characters such as Bertie, Jeeves, Psmith, Bertie’s aunts, Clarence and the Empress interesting. Wodehouse wrote the brilliant ‘ Joy in the morning “ while interned by the Germans is an amazing fact…
October 7, 2022
I cannot imagine what a Herculean task this was. The editor is to be commended for presenting a comprehensive picture of the author. There were so many ticks that carried through. The most notable is the impact of his WWII broadcasts on German radio. I get the feeling that he could have done with a good PR person, because some of his instincts were fuzzy. He was also a person very much of his time, which I'm putting at Edwardian/20s, so please be warned.
June 4, 2023
I enjoyed this collection of Wodehouse's letters. It was put together well with a few pages before each section of his life, so really functioned as a biography. I learned a lot about this author, whose Jeeves and Wooster stories I have really enjoyed. His wonderful humor comes through in the letters he wrote. It was interesting to see how many other famous authors we knew and corresponded with over his life.
January 1, 2025
As other reviewers have stated better to read in sections and stop to read other books inbetween as a lot of the letters are repetitive
Before each section of letters there is a brief biographical summary to explain what was happening in PG Wodehouse’s life but some of the information was repeated in the Wodehouse letters
I never realised just how much he was involved in writing the lyrics for some very famous musicals and was friends with people such as the Gershwin’s
Before each section of letters there is a brief biographical summary to explain what was happening in PG Wodehouse’s life but some of the information was repeated in the Wodehouse letters
I never realised just how much he was involved in writing the lyrics for some very famous musicals and was friends with people such as the Gershwin’s
January 24, 2020
I did not love the way this book was organized but I did really enjoy learning more about one of my favorite authors. I think that Wodehouse was a brilliant writer and he never fails to make me laugh out loud. It was fun to read so many letters written by him and see the absolute same personality that comes through in his books. A book for serious Wodehouse fans.
September 28, 2023
From reading my first Wodehouse story this year to reading this memoir of “Plum’s” life.
This curated collection of Wodehouse’s letters mixed with some biography is a raw and intimate (and sometimes comical) look at who PGW was—something that didn’t come out in his writing.
Now I’m inspired to read more Wodehouse novels!
This curated collection of Wodehouse’s letters mixed with some biography is a raw and intimate (and sometimes comical) look at who PGW was—something that didn’t come out in his writing.
Now I’m inspired to read more Wodehouse novels!
April 7, 2024
I think it's a shame that people don't write letters any more. They are so revealing, and in a different way than digital correspondence is.
So much of Wodehouse the man, foibles and all, come out in his ordinary correspondence with friends, family, professional contacts, and random people.
This is a weighty tome, but if you are a Wodehouse fan, I very much recommend it.
So much of Wodehouse the man, foibles and all, come out in his ordinary correspondence with friends, family, professional contacts, and random people.
This is a weighty tome, but if you are a Wodehouse fan, I very much recommend it.
March 1, 2019
An interesting view into a fascinating author's life. Loved the detail of a writer's life and finances. Also a great insight into Wodehouse's WWII broadcasts on German radio and the reaction in England and America.
January 19, 2019
Inspiring, how could he write so humorously despite being besieged with all sorts of troubles
August 2, 2020
A wonderful glimpse into the life of one of the greatest authors of all time. Magnificently edited by Sophie Ratcliffe
April 8, 2023
An excellent collection of Wodehouse letters that gives an insight into his life, friendships and character. A must read for all his followers.
March 8, 2025
*4.75
January 5, 2019
A wonderful look behind-the-scenes of one of my favorite authors. From his earliest days as a struggling writer, to his internment during World War II, to his retirement on Long Island, we see many intriguing details of Wodehouse’s life, in his own words.
Those words often acted to create the reality in which Wodehouse wished he lived, rather than the reality. One sees common themes among his words to frequent correspondents — creating a wholesome, happy, cheery front so that any unpleasantness can be hidden beneath. Yet, we can see between the lines, especially in letters to his wife Ethel.
It seems quite fitting that a writer who painted such a rosy picture in his books should apply the same approach to his own life. I feel privileged to have been allowed to glimpse it, even at a remove.
Those words often acted to create the reality in which Wodehouse wished he lived, rather than the reality. One sees common themes among his words to frequent correspondents — creating a wholesome, happy, cheery front so that any unpleasantness can be hidden beneath. Yet, we can see between the lines, especially in letters to his wife Ethel.
It seems quite fitting that a writer who painted such a rosy picture in his books should apply the same approach to his own life. I feel privileged to have been allowed to glimpse it, even at a remove.
February 7, 2013
A quite fairly comprehensive overview of Plum's life and times, the closest we'll ever get to an autobiography of the great comic writer. It is chock full of Pekes, and concern for the performance of Dulwich's XIs and XVs, as well as encouragement for his chums who are much less successful authors. When controversy struck Plum, as it did when he unwisely (and disingenuously) stated during the height of the Great Depression that Hollywood was paying him excessive sums not to work (he appears to have worked diligently; it wasn't his fault that the studio couldn't figure out how to use what he was writing), and more crucially, when he broadcast to America over Nazi radio after his time in an internment camp, his letters reveal a wounded bafflement that his motives were so misrepresented. For all his genius, he was very insular; his comments that he found Jews, who he knew solely from Broadway, to be splendid chaps, come across as wince-inducingly patronizing.
What really stood out to me was the sheer breadth of his literary career: he was a contemporary of Kipling, Conan Doyle, Conrad, Waugh, Christie, Orwell, O'Hara, Norman Mailer, Kingsley Amis, and Tom Sharpe. He worked with Jerome Kern and Andrew Lloyd Weber. That is one long career.
What really stood out to me was the sheer breadth of his literary career: he was a contemporary of Kipling, Conan Doyle, Conrad, Waugh, Christie, Orwell, O'Hara, Norman Mailer, Kingsley Amis, and Tom Sharpe. He worked with Jerome Kern and Andrew Lloyd Weber. That is one long career.
April 18, 2016
Man, this book was boring. I spent months trying to get through Wodehouse's most tedious correspondence out of my deep and abiding love for him, but I wish I hadn't. There's nothing new/interesting in here. It seems like Wodehouse had no close friends that he talked to about anything other than "I managed to sell this story for $213 to the New Yorker the other week." He talks a lot about himself (but nothing interesting) and yet doesn't seem to say anything meaningful or worthwhile. The most interesting moment in the whole book was when the editor included a couple of letters he wrote to his wife - the soppy romantic in those letters (he was like 80 when he wrote them, so sweet) is so VASTLY different to the boring useless fop in the other letters that you may get a shock. To sum up - not worth it. Even Wodehouse himself mentions that if a book of his letters were ever to be written, he would make up the letters to sound more interesting than his usual correspondence. I wish this editor had taken notes ...
January 20, 2013
For lovers of Wodehouse, this is a very interesting and entertaining read. Wodehouse's passion for Dulwich sports, his earnings, sorting out his taxes and, after the war, the reaction to his broadcasts from Germany appear again and again. But that is what you would expect if you know anything about his life. His love of his wife and (step)daughter shines through. I hadn't realised that he was married for 60 years.
His comments on contemporary literature are particularly entertaining. His letters to Waugh, Orwell and Christie reflect his admiration, but it is the books he doesn't like that give much more fun, Amis, Peyton Place. Wodehouse also didn't get on with some of the classics, e.g, Trolope and Austen.
A wonderful companion to Robert McCrum's biography.
My rating is four stars because five stars is for Wodehouse's best books, e.g. "Leave it to Psmith".
His comments on contemporary literature are particularly entertaining. His letters to Waugh, Orwell and Christie reflect his admiration, but it is the books he doesn't like that give much more fun, Amis, Peyton Place. Wodehouse also didn't get on with some of the classics, e.g, Trolope and Austen.
A wonderful companion to Robert McCrum's biography.
My rating is four stars because five stars is for Wodehouse's best books, e.g. "Leave it to Psmith".
August 13, 2014
A comprehensive and endlessly fascinating collection of P. G. Wodehouse's letters, covering his long life from adolescence to his death in 1975. He was an inveterate correspondent and, although running to over 400 pages, this collection can only reproduce some of his letters, but those that feature have been expertly curated by the editor, Sophie Ratcliffe, The book is beautifully produced, thoroughly researched and referenced, and with very useful explanatory notes for each letter. Wodehouse's wit and warmth shine through throughout.
March 11, 2024
Well edited and mostly fast-moving and somewhat amusing. Makes me want to go back and read more of his books and stories. Interesting to follow the changing tastes in literature and the changing nature of magazines over his LONG career.
Sadly, also shows his bad judgment and naivety involved in his broadcasts from Germany while he was interned during WW II. He thought he was being amusing but Brits thought he was traitorous.
Sadly, also shows his bad judgment and naivety involved in his broadcasts from Germany while he was interned during WW II. He thought he was being amusing but Brits thought he was traitorous.
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