P. G. Wodehouse

Start Free Trial

Biography

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

P. G. Wodehouse was born on October 15, 1881, in Hong Kong, where his father served in the British civil service. In 1884, he, along with his older brothers, was sent to England for his education. He studied at Elizabeth College and Malvern House, a school preparing students for naval careers. At 12, he started his most significant educational journey at Dulwich College. His six years at Dulwich greatly impacted his life and writings. During his final year there, he earned his first payment for writing when one of his essays appeared in the Public School Magazine.

Wodehouse realized early on that he aspired to be a writer, but his father deemed writing an impractical career choice. Consequently, he became a bank clerk at the London office of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Despite this, he wrote in the evenings and managed to sell 80 stories and articles while employed at the bank. He eventually left the bank and joined The Globe as a journalist in 1903, where he initially wrote and later edited the ‘‘By the Way’’ column. In 1904, he first visited the United States and instantly became enamored with American culture. During one visit, he met Ethel Newton Rowley, a widow, and they married on September 30, 1914.

Wodehouse began crafting lyrics for musical theater in 1904. In 1906, his first collaboration with Jerome Kern, The Beauty of Bath, was staged at the Aldwych Theatre. That same year, Kern introduced Wodehouse to Guy Bolton. Together, the trio transformed musical comedy. Wodehouse, known for his witty lyrics, teamed with Bolton and Kern to create several successful plays, such as Have a Heart (1917) and Oh, Lady! Lady! (1918). One of their works, Leave it to Jane (1917), enjoyed a successful Off-Broadway revival in the early 1970s. During the 1930s, Wodehouse occasionally worked in Hollywood, earning what he thought was a staggering $2,000 per week as a script doctor for Samuel Goldwyn. Nonetheless, he found greater success with his plays and fiction. Theater significantly influenced his novels; he once remarked that his books were akin to musical comedies without the music.

Wodehouse’s fiction gained popularity for its absurd yet intricate plots and quirky characters. While his stories followed a formula, this approach allowed for diverse situations and characters. His tales of Mr. Mulliner, Blandings Castle, and Jeeves and Wooster often included similar plot elements: foolish young men pursuing or evading marriage, mistaken identities, and the theft of an object by various characters. Characters frequently appeared in multiple stories or novels, often referencing events from other works. Another factor in Wodehouse’s success was his exceptional mastery of the English language. He skillfully employed metaphors, puns, slang, and literary references to enhance his fiction.

In 1940, while residing in France, Wodehouse was captured by German forces and spent much of the war interned in Berlin. During his time there, he made the ill-advised decision to participate in a series of radiobroadcasts from Berlin to America in 1941, which were backed by the Germans. Although these broadcasts subtly mocked the Germans, several right-wing publications in England labeled him a traitor. However, writers like George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh defended Wodehouse, highlighting his political naivety. They argued that he was unaware the broadcasts served as valuable propaganda for the Germans. Deeply hurt by these accusations and despite his love for England, Wodehouse eventually emigrated to the United States, becoming a citizen in 1955. The scandal eventually subsided, and to Wodehouse's great delight, he was knighted shortly before his death in 1975.

Biography

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in Guildford, Surrey, on October 15, 1881, the third of four sons born to Henry Ernest and Eleanor Deane Wodehouse. Wodehouse’s father was...

(This entire section contains 751 words.)

Unlock this Study Guide Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

a member of the English civil service and spent most of his working years in Hong Kong; indeed, it was a mere chance that Wodehouse was not born in Hong Kong. Whether it was miscalculation or the event was premature, his birth occurred during one of his mother’s rare and rather brief visits to England.

Wodehouse was reared away from his parents; they were, he often remarked, like distant aunts and uncles rather than parents. Wodehouse entered Dulwich College at the age of twelve and remained there for the next six years. The school was not prominent in the sense that Harrow and Eton were prominent; it was simply a good middle-class school. The headmaster was the most impressive figure, and he may have served as the model for Wooster’s nemesis, the Reverend Aubrey Upjohn. The headmaster was not impressed with his student; he once wrote to Wodehouse’s parents: “He has the most distorted ideas about wit and humour.One is obliged to like him in spite of his vagaries.” The vagaries, apart from the student’s drawing stick figures in his classical texts, are unrecorded. In those final years at Dulwich, Wodehouse found his vocation. He was appointed editor of the school paper and sold his first story to a boys’ weekly, The Public School Magazine. The story won first prize for fiction in that year.

Following graduation in 1900, Wodehouse went to work for the London branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. His work there was not a complete disaster for the banking industry, but very nearly so. Wodehouse was no good at checks and balances and served only as an unpleasant distraction for those who were. At night, he continued to write fiction and reviews or plays and was given a position at the newspaper The Globe in 1902, the year the first of his many novels was published. The respected humor magazine Punch accepted an article from him the next year, and a second novel was also published in 1903. From that time, Wodehouse averaged more than a novel, several short stories, and either a play or musical a year.

In 1914, Wodehouse married Ethel Rowley, a widow with one child. The marriage was a happy one, and the author frequently expressed his gratitude to his wife for the support she gave to his work. For the Wodehouse reader, however, the following year had a much greater significance: Something New, the first of the Blandings novels, was published. A few years later, the short-story collection My Man Jeeves (1919) appeared, the first of the Jeeves and Wooster saga.

Novels and stories appeared with an unfailing regularity, and in the next two decades, Wodehouse became an acknowledged master. In 1939, Oxford paid tribute to his greatness by conferring on him the honorary doctorate of letters (D.Litt.). The doctorate meant that Jeeves, Wooster, Emsworth, and the rest were accepted as part of the heritage of English literature. The Times of London supported the Oxford gesture, noting that the praise given to Wodehouse the stylist was especially apt: “Style goes a long way in Oxford; indeed the purity of Mr. Wodehouse’s style was singled out for particular praise in the Public Orator’s happy Horatian summing up of Mr. Wodehouse’s qualities and achievements.”

Wodehouse and his wife had lived in France throughout much of the 1930’s, and though war with Germany was believed imminent, Wodehouse returned to France after he received the doctorate at Oxford. In 1940, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. In various prison camps, he made a series of broadcasts over German radio that were interpreted as a form of collaboration with the enemy. Wodehouse was innocent of all the charges, but it was perhaps his innocence, the vital ingredient in most of his heroes, that almost undid him. The closest Wodehouse came to collaboration was his remark to the effect that he was not unhappy in prison, for he was able to continue his work. One scholar has called that broadcast “clearly indiscreet,” but those who have read the Wodehouse letters know that he scarcely thought about anything else aside from his work.

After his release, Wodehouse eventually returned to the United States, where he took permanent residence; he became an American citizen in 1955. In 1973 he was knighted, and he died in 1975 at the age of ninety-four.