P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975,) fully Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, was a British novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and lyricist best known as the creator of Jeeves, the supreme “gentleman’s gentleman.” Among the most well-liked of popular writers, he effectively developed the modern comic novel. He wrote more than 90 books and 20 film scripts and collaborated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies.
Born in Guildford, Surrey, Wodehouse was the son of a judge in Hong Kong. Educated at Dulwich College, London, Wodehouse clerked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank for two years before beginning to earn a living as a journalist and story writer. In the USA before World War I, he sold a serial to the Saturday Evening Post, and for a quarter of a century, almost all his books appeared first in that magazine.
Wodehouse made his name with Piccadilly Jim (1917,) but World War II ruined his reputation. Captured by the Germans at Le Touquet in northern France, he was locked up and then released, but not allowed to leave Germany. He agreed to make ill-advised radio broadcasts for the Germans—these infuriated British public opinion, and he became an American citizen in 1955. Britain ultimately cleared his name; he was given a knighthood a few days before his death.
Wodehouse’s abundant oeuvre contains over 100 books, but he is best known as the creator of Bertie Wooster and his renowned valet, Jeeves. Of his many works, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934,) Quick Service (1940,) and The Mating Season (1949) are prominent.
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Marriage isn’t a process of prolonging the life of love, but of mummifying the corpse.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Marriage
The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Golf
Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Golf
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Optimism
My only objection to the custom of giving books as Christmas presents is perhaps the selfish one that it encourages and keeps in the game a number of writers who would be far better employed if they abandoned the pen and took to work.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Books
Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Criticism
After all, golf is only a game, said Millicent. Women say these things without thinking. It does not mean that there is a kink in their character. They simply don’t realise what they are saying.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Golf
He was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say “when!”
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Fashion
He enjoys that perfect peace, that peace beyond all understanding, which comes at its maximum only to the man who has given up golf.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Golf
It’s a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people don’t want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Manners
Never put anything on paper, my boy, and never trust a man with a small black moustache.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Advice
She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when.’
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Insults
Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else’s cash.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Divorce
Flowers are happy things.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Flowers
I always advise people never to give advice.
—P. G. Wodehouse
Topics: Advice
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