P. G. Wodehouse
AUTHOR

P. G. Wodehouse

Literature & Fiction | Comedy & Humour
Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (/ˈwʊdhaʊs/; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; the feeble-minded Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the loquacious Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and the equally loquacious Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls. Although most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, he wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies that were an important part of the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak. In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons; in 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, which had not yet entered the war. The talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse never returned to England. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955. He was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, New York. Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared with comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers. Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Unlisted photographer for Screenland (Screenland, August 1930 (Vol XXI, No 4); p. 20) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Read more Read less
Not an Audible member?
From £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Start your free 30-day trial

Best Sellers

Product list
  • P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1 cover art

    Regular price: £23.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £23.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • P. G. Wodehouse Volume 2 cover art

    Regular price: £23.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £23.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Jeeves & Wooster cover art

    Regular price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £16.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Inimitable Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Death at the Excelsior [Classic Tales Edition] cover art

    Regular price: £3.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £3.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The Mating Season cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Carry On, Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Big Money cover art

    Regular price: £13.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £13.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Thank You, Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Joy in the Morning cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Very Good, Jeeves cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • A Pelican at Blandings cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Pigs Have Wings cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Summer Moonshine cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Very Good Jeeves, Volume 2 cover art

    Regular price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Service with a Smile cover art

    Regular price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £11.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Leave it to Psmith cover art

    Regular price: £13.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £13.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00

Are you an author?

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
Visit Amazon Author Central