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The literary career of Wodehouse almost exactly covered the first three quarters of the present century. Eighty of his titles are in print in these islands today in hard covers published by Barrie & Jenkins, and Penguins usually have about twenty of them in paperback at any given time. ‘It is a striking example of the patience and loyalty of the British public’, as his great master, Conan Doyle, observed of the unflagging popularity of Sherlock Holmes.
It is also a striking example of the power and endurance of Wodehouse’s rapport with his readers. The achievement is in its way more remarkable than that of his master. When Conan Doyle wrote those words at the end of the 1920s, over half of his own literary output had vanished from the bookshops, and Holmes has carried on his lean shoulders anything to have survived in addition to his own cycle. Wodehouse, on the other hand, has never had to depend on Jeeves to sell his other titles. Jeeves and Bertie have been the favourites, but Lord Emsworth, Mr Mulliner, the Oldest Member, Ukridge, the Drones Club, and Psmith—and the vast range of characters limited to one or two novels—have consistently retained their public. There is a story that Evelyn Waugh once asked Graham Greene what he proposed to write next, The End of the Affair having recently appeared. ‘Something about God, I suppose, Greene’?
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- Copyright © 1975 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 My first thanks are due to my mother, Sile Ni Shúilleabháin, for first introducing me to the work of Wodehouse in Dunquin, Co. Kerry, 27 years ago, and for many subsequent communings thereon. For a great variety of forms of assistance, Wodehousian and ancillary, my gratitude is due to: Bonnie Dudley Edwards, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Michael J. Gallagher, Aindreas O Gallchoir, Arthur J. Glover, Rhodri Jeffreys‐Jones, V. G. Kiernan, Herbert McCabe, Alf Mac Lochlainn, Sean Mac Reamoinn, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Nicholas T. Phillipson, Conan Rafferty, W. W. Robson, George A. Shepperson, R. T. Savage, Clarke L. Wilhelm, Robin W. Winks, Michael J. Worton. The following libraries greatly aided my work: the McKisack Library of the University of South Carolina, the Library of Congress, the California University at San Francisco Library, the National Library of Ireland, the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library; and the private collection of G. F. A. Best. Some of the ideas on race and Progressivism were initially explored in a seminar at the University of South Carolina, and in the Commonwealth and American Seminar of the University of Edinburgh; the Scots theme I put forward briefly to a Burns supper at Girvan, Ayrshire. My thanks are due to the participants in all three. I am very appreciative of the courtesy of Derek Ward of Barrie & Jenkins, and of Oenone Grant Du Prez of Penguin. I must acknowledge my debt to the pioneer work of George Orwell, Richard Usborne and R. B. D. French: I have examined other critical work on Wodehouse where I have no debts to record that I know of.
2 Barrie & Jenkins titles (where used by me, hereunder abbreviated as J) are £1.50 m most instances. The omnibus volumes are: The World of Jeeves (£2.50), The World of Mr Mulliner (£3), The World of Psmith (£3.50) and The Golf Omnibus (£4.95); they are attractively presented but the proof‐reading is slipshod. The most recent volume is Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (£2.60), a Jeeves story, although Wodenouse was engaged on yet another Jeeves novel at his death. Penguins vary between 35p and 50p. A recent listing included The Inimitable Jeeves, Carry on, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, Jeeves in 'he Offing, The Mating Season, Right Ho, Jeeves. Very Good, Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Lord Emsworth and Others, Summer Lightning. Pigs Have Wings, Galahad at Blandings, Psmith in the Citv, Psmith, Journalist. Big Money, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Laughing Gas, Piccadilly Jim, The Little Nugget, Summer Moonshine, Quick Service, Sam the Sudden, The Luck of the Bodkins and Pearls. Girls, and Monty Bodkin but this is subject to incessant chanacr have used several Penguins not necessarily in print in this essay and have cited them for my own convenience: P. Penguins need to watch their proof‐reading too. ‘Preface to The Case‐Book of Sherlock Holmes’ (1929).
4 Published initially as a serial ‘Jackson Junior and then published as a single novel linked by one new line with its serial sequel ‘The Lost Lambs’, as Mike (1909). The sequel was published alone as Enter Psmith (1935) and in 1953 the two volumes were issued separately as Mike at Wrykin and Mike and Psmith, the second of which alone is in The World of Psmith (1974) but the first is still in print, J. To make matters even more difficult the third sequel “The New Fold” in serial form was clearly seen by Wodehouse as holding the same relationship to the second that the second did to the first: we now know it as Psmith in the City. His only three‐volumed novel.
5 1907. Illustrated by his life‐long friend W. Townend. 544
6 Letters to Townend, introduced and edited by him (1953). The title is from Sean O ‘Casey's probable gibe ‘English literature's performing flea ‘. In fact, O'Casey caught the versatility and intangibility of Wodehouse perfectly, and whether he meant it or not it is, as Wodehouse shrewdly recognised, an excellent compliment. In print, J.
7 'Wodehouse to Townend, 28 April 1925, Performing Flea, P., 35.
8 “Specifically J. Washburn Stoker and Catsmeat Potter‐Pirbright” (see ch. entitled ‘Start Smearing, Jeeves’). Published 1934.
9 Very Good, Jeeves (published 1930), J., 260–61 (ch. 9) and The World of Jeeves (published 1967), J, 470 (ch. 30).
10 For Hutchinson's Century series which flourished in the 1930s. Very interesting for Wodehouse's more trivial sources but few of the pieces stand up on their own. The Wilde (‘The Canterville Ghost’) and ‘Saki’ (‘Tobermory’, ‘A Matter of Sentiment’) do, of course. Lorimer (see below) is represented, as is Townend. So are Jerome and Conan Doyle. Jenkins, by now dead, is not.
11 Preface to The World of Mr Mulliner (published 1972), J., 8.
12 Mulliner Nights. Fifteen Mulliners appeared subsequently of which five were in Blandings Castle (published 1935), one in Lord Emsworth and Others (published 1937) and three in Young Men in Spats (published 1936). The other six, of a later date, are poor.
13 Blandings Castle, Lord Emsworth and Others, Young Men in Spats, Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (published 1940), Nothing Serious (published 1950), A Few Quick Ones (published 1959), Plum Pie (published 1967).
14 Correctly Blandings Castle and Elsewhere but, misleadingly, the latter part of the title was lost sight of in most computations.
15 Psmith, Journalist (published 1915). Mike is off‐stage for most of the book, although he is responsible for Psmith's presence in America. The original use of the plot was in the American edition of The Prince and Betty (published 1912). See below.
16 Leave it to Psmith (published 1923). Wodehouse had vaguely worked with a few characters appearing twice. The Little Nugget (published 1913) bequeathed the title‐character and his mother to Piccadilly Jim (published 1918) for subordinate roles. Unfortunately Smooth Sam Fisher, an Oppenheimstyle crook in the former, did not make the transition: his successor is reminiscent of a nasty from the Gem. His influence continued through to Do Butlers Burgle Banks? (published 1968). Similarly. Wally Mason of Jill the Reckless (published 1921) is spoken of as a partner of George Bevan of A Damsel in Distress.
17 Published 1915. One suspects that the reason for the reuse of Blandings was that the four characters in question had been left hanging at the end, whereas the then much more satisfactory characters of A Damsel in Distress, from which so much of the later Blandings derives, were given appropriate endings to their stories, from which they could not be easily rescued later.
18 Wodehouse at Work, 171. He uses the word in the context of Reggie Pepper's relationship to Bertie Wooster.
19 It gave Wodehouse a lot of trouble: large now. it was much larger before publication. See Performing Flea, P., 31, 84–86, 90‐91, 94.
20 Published in the Strand, 1935, and in Young Men in Spats next year. See Wodehouse to Townend, 12 September 1935, 15 May 1938, Performing Flea, P., 95, 117.
21 P. G. Wodehouse (Edinburgh, 1966), 61–62Google Scholar. (To be continued)
22 Previously Sir Humphrey Codd, K.C., of the Misleading Cases, a less happy comparison (Herbert had much less consistency than Wodehouse in his characters). One wonders if these lines in The Mating Season are another tribute to Herbert: ‘Haddock, sir ‘Haddock, eh’?‘Yes, sir …’. ‘It's odd, but that name seems to strike a chord, as if I'd heard it before somewhere’ (P., 6).
23 See ‘Old Bill Townend’ reprinted in Week‐End Wodehouse (published 1951). J. 65–68. not to mention Performing Flea, passim. Jenkins was the author of the Bindle books and various others, including a God‐awful set of detective stories concerned with one Malcolm Sage. Wodehouse's introduction to one of his volumes does his head no credit, and his heart much: and what little charity T myself possess has enabled me to forget the citation.