Biography & Autobiography

P.G. ‘Plum’ Wodehouse is the greatest humorous writer England produced in the 20th century. 

The creator of Jeeves and Bertie, the Blandings saga, Ukridge, Mr Mulliner, Psmith and Uncle Fred, his output totalled almost 100 volumes of peerless comic invention. But where did all that material come from? Not just out of his head, no matter how large his hat size: in Wodehouse’s case, much arrived courtesy of his voracious reading habits, everything from Shakespeare to W.S. Gilbert via the Bible, Tennyson, Sherlock Holmes, gung-ho schoolboy fiction, gory pulp thrillers, the gloopiest romances and literally hundreds of other writers - even T.S. Eliot. No other writer had a broader range of influences.

 

In his latest groundbreaking study, Paul Kent, author of the Pelham Grenville Wodehouse trilogy of literary biographies teases out Plum’s literary roots, and how he expertly blended elements from all these writers and genres into the heady cocktail that keeps the world laughing over a hundred years on from when he first created it. It’s an alternative history of English Literature that will also make you laugh out loud.

“We read Wodehouse because he was a master of words. We can read Kent for the same reason”. Wooster Sauce, journal of The P.G. Wodehouse Society (UK)

 

A TOUR OF THE COMIC IMAGINATION OF P.G. WODEHOUSE

 

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is widely acknowledged as the greatest English comic writer of the 20th century. The creator of Jeeves & Wooster, Lord Emsworth and Blandings, Ukridge, Mr. Mulliner, the Oldest Member and the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets of the Drones Club, the consistently upbeat tone of his 100 or so books represents one of the largest-ever literary bequests to human happiness by one man. Indeed, Wodehouse was not just a writer for his time, but for all time, and in 2019, a memorial commemorating his life and work was dedicated in Westminster Abbey, London, the only one to honour an out-and-out humourist. 

 

In this concluding volume of his groundbreaking trilogy, lifelong enthusiast Paul Kent sets out to explain the enduring, global appeal of PGW’s comic world from the U.K. to Japan via India and Russia. Granted unprecedented access to Wodehouse’s papers and library, it contains a wealth of fresh insight and scholarship that gets right to the heart of Wodehouse’s comic vision and is a must for both casual fan and devotee alike.

 

“Paul Kent has added his joy and light while giving us new insights into Wodehouse . . . Your time with his books will breeze by, and you will clamor for more. Hear that distant sound? That’s me already clamoring”.

 

GARY HALL, PLUM LINES, THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE WODEHOUSE SOCIETY (US)

 

“Kent is forging the new path in the way I hope writing about Wodehouse will go”.

 

TIM ANDREW, CHAIRMAN, THE P.G. WODEHOUSE SOCIETY (UK)

Whether you re an absolute beginner or an aficionado, Paul Kent has captured the essence of what made Wodehouse tick without spoiling all the fun; and makes a compelling case for why we owe it to our collective sanity to keep on reading him. P.G. Wodehouse 1881-1975 Humourist, Novelist, Lyricist, Playwright So reads the simple inscription on the memorial stone unveiled in London s Westminster Abbey in September 2019, honouring the greatest comic writer of the 20th century. It takes a steady hand and a steely nerve to insist that sweetness and light can prevail in a world that seems hell-bent on proving the opposite, and over 40 years after his death, Wodehouse is not just surviving but thriving all over the world. Young Indian professionals can t get enough of him; he s hugely popular in Japan; his books have been translated into more than 30 languages, from Azerbaijani to Ukrainian via Hebrew, Italian, Swedish and Chinese; and there are established Wodehouse societies in the UK, the USA, Belgium, Holland and Russia. His books are demonstrating the staying power of true classics, and are all currently in print, making him as relevant and funny - as he ever was.

In 1915, and for the next decade or so, P.G. Wodehouse’s fictional world mushroomed within his imagination. His best-known creations, Jeeves and Bertie, arrived in that year, as did Lord Emsworth and many of the Blandings circle; the Oldest Member teed off in 1919; the Drones Club threw open its doors in 1921; a new, thoroughly improved Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge returned to the fold in 1923, and Mr Mulliner sipped his first hot scotch and lemon at the bar parlour of the Angler’s Rest in 1926. 

Plum would steadily re-visit these characters and locations for another half-century, interspersing his tales with one off novels, stories and further, less voluminous sub series until his death in 1975. These were truly golden years, with Plum at the height of what he called his “mid-season form”. 

Paul Kent continues his groundbreaking study of Wodehouse’s imagination by casting a fresh eye over his created world, whose characters and stories have made our world feel better about itself for well over a century.

Desmond may have given me an insight into human behaviour, but he’s given me lots of laughs, too. We think the same things are funny, and he’s a brilliant raconteur. —Sir David Attenborough

This is a book about the joys of watching the world.

It is autobiographical, but it is not about me; it is about what I have observed. There is no agonised soul-searching, no sneaky kiss-and-tell, no pretentious journey to find the ‘real me’. I am not interested in myself. But I am fascinated by the world around me and what I have been able to see and record over a period of six decades of professional observation, first as a student of animal behaviour, and then as a student of human behaviour.

Desmond Morris was born in 1928. Educated at Birmingham and Oxford universities, he became the Curator of Mammals at London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years.

In 1967 he published The Naked Ape which has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and has changed the way we view our own species forever.

An accomplished artist, TV presenter, film maker and writer, Desmond Morris's books have been published in over thirty-six countries.