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The definitive edition of the letters—many previously unpublished—of England’s greatest comic writer. P. G. Wodehouse wrote some of the greatest comic masterpieces of all time. So, naturally, we find the same humor and wit in his letters. He offers hilarious accounts of living in England and France, the effects of prohibition, and how to deal with publishers. He even recounts cricket matches played while in a Nazi internment camp (Wodehouse wanted to show the stiff upper lip of the British in the toughest situations). Over the years, Wodehouse corresponded with relatives, friends, and some of the greatest figures of the twentieth century: Agatha Christie, Ira Gershwin, Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The letters are arranged chronologically with intersecting sections of biography written by Sophie Ratcliffe. This is the only book you will need to understand the man behind the characters.

A comprehensive guide to P. G. Wodehouse's two best-loved comic characters, Bertram Wilbeforce Wooster and his valet ('Reggie') Jeeves, Bertie's friends and relatives and their world of sunshine, country houses and champagne. Although the stories may seem quintessentially English, they were for the most part written in the United States by a man who spent more than half his adult life there, eventually becoming a citizen in 1955. The first stories involving the two characters are even set in New York, while those that aren't are set in an England that has never existed, contrived to appeal to an American audience. Cawthorne offers fascinating insights into Wodehouse's world, his life - on Long Island and elsewhere - the wonderful short stories and novels and the many adaptations for stage and screen.

As the Second World War raged throughout Europe, modernist writers often became crucial voices in the propaganda efforts of both sides. Modernism at the Microphone: Radio, Propaganda, and Literary Aesthetics During World War II is a comprehensive study of the role modernist writers' radio works played in the propaganda war and the relationship between modernist literary aesthetics and propaganda. Drawing on new archival research, the book covers the broadcast work of such key figures as George Orwell, Orson Welles, Dorothy L. Sayers, Louis MacNeice, Mulk Raj Anand, T.S. Eliot, and P.G. Wodehouse. In addition to the work of Anglo-American modernists, Melissa Dinsman also explores the radio work of exiled German writers, such as Thomas Mann, as well as Ezra Pound's notorious pro-fascist broadcasts. In this way, the book reveals modernism's engagement with new technologies that opened up transnational boundaries under the pressures of war.

While he is best known for his Jeeves and Bertie Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse was a prolific writer who penned many other novels, stories, and musical comedy libretti, the latter of which played an enormous role in the development of American musical theater. This collection re-examines Wodehouse in the context of recent scholarship on the middlebrow, attending to his self-conscious relationship to the literary marketplace and his role in moving musical comedy away from vaudeville’s lowbrow associations towards the sophistication of the Wodehouse style. The focus on the middlebrow creates a critical context for serious critical consideration of Wodehouse’s linguistic playfulness and his depictions of social class within England. The contributors explore Wodehouse’s fiction and libretti in reference to philosophy, depictions of masculinity, World War I Britain, the periodical market, ideas of Englishness, and cultural phenomena such as men’s fashion, food culture, and popular songwriting. Taken together, the essays draw attention to the arbitrary divide between high- and middlebrow culture and make a case for Wodehouse as a writer whose games with language are in keeping ...

Searching for Lord Haw-Haw is an authoritative account of the political lives of William Joyce. He became notorious as a fascist, an anti-Semite and then as a Second World War traitor when, assuming the persona of Lord Haw-Haw, he acted as a radio propagandist for the Nazis. It is an endlessly compelling story of simmering hope, intense frustration, renewed anticipation and ultimately catastrophic failure. This fully-referenced work is the first attempt to place Joyce at the centre of the turbulent, traumatic and influential events through which he lived. It challenges existing biographies, which have reflected not only Joyce’s frequent calculated deceptions but also the suspect claims advanced by his family, friends and apologists. By exploring his rampant, increasingly influential narcissism it also offers a pioneering analysis of Joyce’s personality and exposes its dangerous, destructive consequences. "What a saga my life would make!" Joyce wrote from prison just before his execution. Few would disagree with him.

Twenty-five more strange and fascinating true-life tales featuring the greatest city in the world.

The book highlights facets of people's experiences since the 19th century with Atlantic space and the design of their stay on board ships. The contributions range from the perspective of pleasure-seeking tourists, who used ships as a temporary, luxurious homes to the perspective of military personnel, who perceived the Atlantic Passage as a transition between homeland security and potentially dangerous professional operations - the risks of sea voyages even on technically sophisticated ocean liners, whose interiors and services often include grand hotels in the metropolises of the late 19th and 20th century, were discreetly ignored by the passengers. The charm of the Atlantic and the ship, unthinkable in earlier times, should not be decimated in any way.

Beloved British humorist P.G. Wodehouse produced a wealth of literature in his lengthy career, contributing novels, short stories, plays, lyrics and essays to the canon of comic writing. His work in film and television included two stints as a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s, and his stories have been the basis for more than 150 film and television productions. He also wrote 20 stories and essays about Hollywood, satirizing the city and its entertainment magnates. This book studies P.G. Wodehouse’s extensive, but often overlooked relationship with Tinsel Town. The book is arranged chronologically, covering Wodehouse’s Hollywood career from his early efforts in silent film, to his later contributions in television, to his work adapted posthumously for the screen. Radio is covered as well, including a discussion of his internment in occupied France and his brief appearances on German radio. Reflecting Wodehouse’s international appeal, the book covers Wodehouse films and television in England, Germany, Sweden, and India. Also included are a comprehensive, detailed list of Wodehouse’s stories and articles about Hollywood, and a complete filmography of motion picture and ...

An irreverent selection of essays by the best-selling author of Wry Martinis traces his literary friendships, family experiences and travels in such entries as "How to Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski," "A Short History of the Bug Zapper" and "The Art of Sacking."

From the publisher of the acclaimed collector's Wodehouse editions, P.G. Wodehouse In His Own Words is a sparkling collection of excerpts from the master's own writings that reveals a wonderfully entertaining gloss on Wodehouse's own life story. Quotations from a literary career spanning more than seventy years are arranged in chapters that move from childhood, to school years, to the various preoccupations of the grown man. a linking narrative, skillfully supplied by Wodehouse aficionado Barry Day, and former President of the International Wodehouse society Tony Ring brilliantly ties all the material together. Full of the scintillating wordplay and comedy that characterize Wodehouse's novels, stories, letters, and nonfiction, this handsome volume is the perfect addition to anyone's library.

 As a Ziegfeld Follies girl and film actress, Justine Johnstone (1895–1982) was celebrated as “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Her career took an unexpected turn when she abruptly retired from acting at 31. For the remainder of her life, she dedicated herself to medical research and social activism. As a cutting-edge pathologist, she contributed to the pre-penicillin treatment of syphilis at Columbia University, participated in the development of early cancer treatments at Caltech, and assisted Los Angeles physicians in oncology research. As a divorced woman in the 1940s, she adopted and raised two children on her own. She later helped find work for blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters and became a prominent participant in social and political causes. The first full-length biography of Johnstone chronicles her extraordinary success in two male-dominated fields—show business and medical science—and follows her remarkable journey into a fascinating and fulfilling life.

Was PG Wodehouse really a traitor, a naive simpleton dominated by his wife and out of touch with the world around him? This book challenges many of the accepted wisdoms about PG Wodehouse and his work and skilfully entwines details of Wodehouse's life with an analysis of his work to show that, contrary to popular belief, many of the scenarios, characters and issues he wrote about came from his own, sometimes bitter, personal experience. It shows, for instance, how Bertie Wooster is a much misunderstood figure in literature and shared many of the characteristics and life story of PG Wodehouse himself. Easdale also gives fresh insight into PG Wodehouse's alleged ‘treachery’ during World War II and his motives for making five radio broadcasts from Germany which were to cast a shadow over the rest of his life. ‘Easdale often finds an original angle with which to shatter stale, accepted perception... this book is compelling.’ (Country Life). ‘This fascinating examination offers a refreshing and accessible study of Wodehouse’s work.’ (Press Association).

This compilation of personal letters creates an autobiography of the well-known author of Nineteen Eighty-Four” through his correspondence with other literary luminaries including T.S. Elliot and Henry Miller, as well as letters to complete strangers. 10,000 first printing.

One hundred years after his first novel was published P.G. Wodehouse still promises a release from everyday cares into a paradise of innocent comic mayhem. His many books are still in print, his characters Jeeves, Wooster and Lord Emsworth have passed into the language and his admirers range from Dorothy Parker, Evelyn Waugh to Salman Rushdie, Stephen Fry and Gerry Adams.In a new biography based on research throughout Britain, Europe and the USA Robert McCrum delves deep beneath the brilliant surface of P.G. Wodehouse's extraordinary life: his youth in Edwardian Britain, his golden years in Jazz Age America and his internment in Nazi Germany, the experience that haunted him to his death in 1975, to create a moving and extremely funny portrait of an English writer of genius.

An English comic novelist and short story writer, P. G. Wodehouse is best known as the creator of the young bachelor Bertie Wooster and his effortlessly superior manservant, Jeeves. Wodehouse penned over 90 books and secured a devoted readership across the world. His first success came as a writer of public school stories, based on his own childhood experiences, most notably introducing the strikingly original character, Psmith. These were followed by light romances, but in 1913, with the publication of the first Blandings Castle novel, ‘Something New’, he turned to farce, which became his preferred genre of work. Wodehouse is celebrated for his scholarly command of the English sentence, blended with vivid, far-fetched imagery and the uproarious slang of the late Edwardian era. His novels feature highly complicated plots and hilarious situations, revealing the hand of a master humorist. This comprehensive eBook offers the most complete edition possible of P. G. Wodehouse, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Wodehouse’s life and works * Concise...

'This selection is a ceaseless delight ... there is a treat on almost every page' Daily Telegraph George Orwell wrote, in his words, from 'a desire to see things as they are'. This new collection of his journalism and other writings, including articles, essays, broadcasts, poems, book and film reviews from across his career, shows his unmatched genius for observing the world. Whether discussing Polish immigration or Scottish independence, railing against racism, defending the English language or holding an imaginary conversation with Jonathan Swift, these pieces reveal a clear-eyed, entertaining and eternally relevant chronicler of his age. Edited with an introduction by Peter Davison 'Orwell's luminous gift was for seeing things, for noticing what others missed, took for granted or simply found uninteresting, for discovering meaning and wonder in the familiarity of the everyday... Nothing escaped or seemed beneath his notice, which was what made him such a good reporter... Seeing Things As They Are is intended to be a collection first and foremost of his journalism, with preference given to lesser-known pieces and reviews as well as some of the poems he wrote. It is full of...

Ageing is that part of the future that we try to keep in the future. And 'nobody likes to get old ... that doesn't mean to say you have to be an old fart sitting in the pub talking about what happened in the 1960s' Mick Jagger. John Burningham has collected fine examples of the wisdom and wit that comes with age from those in the know, woven with a rich selection of quotes and fifty poignant drawings by Burningham himself.

A P.G. Wodehouse novel Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire - but that doesn't stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to 'Biscuit', Lord Biskerton, who doesn't have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann - just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine. In this typically hilarious novel by the master of light comedy, life can sometimes become a little complicated. Oh, and Berry has been left a lot of shares in the Dream Come True copper mine. Of course they're worthless... aren't they?

A companion to the popular Wodehouse collection, written in conjunction with the International Wodehouse Association's president, presents the story of his life as described through his own characteristic wit and drollery.

This book features red-haired, dog-loving Wilhelmina "Billie" Bennet, and the three men, a long-time friend and admirer of Billie, a lily-livered poet who is engaged to Billie at the opening of the tale, and his dashing cousin, who falls for Billie at first sight. All four find themselves on an ocean liner headed for England together, and typically Wodehousian romantic shenanigans ensue.

William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, or "Bill", makes his living as a London club secretary. His beautiful fiancée, Claire Fenwick, will not marry him unless he makes more money. Bill decides to move to America in hopes of striking it rich. Just before he sails, Bill is unexpectedly bequeathed a million pounds by an American he once helped at golf; the millionaire left his niece and nephew only twenty pounds, which makes him uneasy. He endeavors to approach them and see if he can fix up something, like giving them half the inheritance. He discovers that it can be difficult to give money away.

P.G. Wodehouse saw his first article published when still at school, and went on to become the leading humour writer of the twentieth century. He created characters famous across the English-speaking world, such as Rupert Psmith, Stanley Ukridge, Uncle Fred, the inhabitants of the Drones Club, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, and Lord Emsworth and his beloved Empress, all of whom remain as popular today as they were when they first appeared all those years ago. But behind all the brilliant metaphors that make us laugh out loud, there is a surprising background of reality. Wodehouse didn’t create his stories from scratch; he used real settings and exaggerated the characteristics of people he knew. With examples of Wodehouse’s unique imagery, the P.G. Wodehouse Miscellany follows the development and progress of his legendary characters, tells us where Wodehouse got his ideas from and demonstrates why his admirers included Bertrand Russell, Berthold Brecht, George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling and the Kaiser. This informative little miscellany will be a must for all fans of P.G. Wodehouse.

New Makers of Modern Culture is the successor to the classic reference works Makers of Modern Culture and Makers of Nineteenth-Century Culture, published by Routledge in the early 1980s. The set was extremely successful and continues to be used to this day, due to the high quality of the writing, the distinguished contributors, and the cultural sensitivity shown in the selection of those individuals included. New Makers of Modern Culture takes into full account the rise and fall of reputation and influence over the last twenty-five years and the epochal changes that have occurred: the demise of Marxism and the collapse of the Soviet Union; the rise and fall of postmodernism; the eruption of Islamic fundamentalism; the triumph of the Internet. Containing over eight hundred essay-style entries, and covering the period from 1850 to the present, New Makers of Modern Culture includes artists, writers, dramatists, architects, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists, sociologists, major political figures, composers, film-makers and many other culturally significant individuals and is thoroughly international in its purview. Next to Karl Marx is Bob Marley, next to John Ruskin is Salman ...

Semiotic Encounters: Text, Image and Trans-Nation aims at opening up scholarly debates on the contemporary challenges of intertextuality in its various intersections with postcolonial and visual culture studies. Commencing with three theoretical contributions, which work towards the creation of frameworks under which intertextuality can be (re)viewed today, the volume then explores textual and visual encounters in a number of case studies. While (a) the dimension of the intertextual in the traditional sense (as specified e.g. by Genette) and (b) the widening of the concept towards visual and digital culture govern the structure of the volume, questions of the transnational and/or postcolonial form a recurrent subtext. The volume's combination of theoretical discussions and case studies, which predominantly deal with 'English classics' and their rewritings, film adaptations and/or rereadings, will mainly attract graduate students and scholars working on contemporary literary theory, visual culture and postcolonial literatures.

A guide through the many publications on 20th-century British history, this reference contains over 27,000 entries arranged by theme, with introductions to each chapter.

'For the sake of argument, one must never let a euphemism or a false consolation pass uncontested. The truth seldom lies, but when it does lie it lies somewhere in between.'. The global turmoil of the last few years has severely tested every analyst and commentator. Few have written with such insight as Christopher Hitchens about the large events - or with such discernment and with about the small tell-tale signs of a disordered culture. For the Sake of Argument ranges from the political squalor of Washington, as a beleaguered Bush administration seeks desperately to stave off disaster and Clinton prepares for power, to the twilight of Stalinism in Prague; from the Jewish quarter of Damascus in the aftermath of the Gulf War to the embattled barrios of Central America and the imperishable resistance of Saralevo, as a difficult peace is negotiated with ruthless foes. Hitchens' unsparing account of Western realpolitik in the end shows it to rest on delusion as well as deception. The reader will find in these pages outstanding essays on political asassination in America as well as a scathing review of the evisceration of politics by pollsters and spin-doctors. Hitchens' knowledge of...

Granular Modernism understands the way that some Modernist texts put themselves together as a way of pulling themselves apart. In this volume, Beci Carver offers a new way of reading Modernist novels and poems , by drawing attention to the anomalies that make them difficult to summarise or simplify. Carver proposes that rather than trying to find the shapes of narrative or argument in their writing, the 'Granular Modernists' - namely, Joseph Conrad, William Gerhardie, Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, and Samuel Beckett - experiment in certain of their works in finding the shapelessness of a moment in history that increasingly confidently called itself 'modern', which was to call itself shapeless. The project of Modernism in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, was to find a story to tell about an era full of beginnings. The project of 'Granular Modernism' was to find a way of turning the inchoateness of the modern moment into art. Granular Modernism takes from the Naturalist movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century its attentiveness to the process of mundane experiences like eating or waiting. But where Naturalism sets...

This edition features • two complete books • a linked Table of Contents CONTENTS THE MAN UPSTAIRS AND OTHER STORIES THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET AND OTHER STORIES

Presents a collection of humorous stories, including "The Truth about George," "Ukridge's Dog College," "The Coming of Gowf," "The Purity of the Turf," and "A Slice of Life."

The definitive and authorized biography of one of the greatest literary humorists of all time, first published in 1974, now appears in a revised updated edition.

A P.G Wodehouse novel If you come into a lot of money, life becomes easier, right? No, wrong - at least for Sally Nicholas, whose generosity of spirit immediately runs into all the slings and arrows outrageous fortune can send. Her handsome fiance turns out not to be all he seems - and then there is the show he's written, which Sally puts on in the theatre. No, in this delightful early novel from the master of Englsih comedy, life is not straightforward at all. But waiting in the wings is Ginger Kemp, who really does adore her, seems to make a hash of everything he tries and yet is always ready to try something else. If money becomes a problem, perhaps Ginger will provide a solution.

A P.G. Wodehouse novel Lady Maud, the spirited young daughter of the Earl of Marshmoreton, is confined to her home, Belpher Castle in Hampshire, under aunt's orders because of an unfortunate infatuation. Enter our hero, George Bevan, an American who writes songs for musicals and is so smitten with Maud that he descends on Hampshire's rolling acres to see off his rival and claim her heart. Meanwhile, in the great Wodehousian tradition, the Earl of Marshmoreton just wants a quiet life pottering in his garden, supported by his portly butler Keggs and free from the demands of his bossy sister and his silly-ass son. It is a sunny story which involves misunderstandings, butlers and gentle hearts torn asunder only to be reunited at last. This delightful novel which was twice filmed (once as a musical starring Fred Astaire) has all the wit and lightness of touch that we expect from the great comic writer.

On the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, The New Criterion has brought together a plump chrestomathy of essays demonstrating its range and acuity as America’s foremost review of culture and the arts. With contributions by Bruce Bawer, Anthony Daniels, Denis Donoghue, Joseph Epstein, John Steele Gordon, Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Hill, Donald Kagan, Roger Kimball, Heather Mac Donald, Myron Magnet, Andrew C. McCarthy, David Pryce-Jones, Andrew Roberts, Alexander McCall Smith, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Keith Windschuttle, and many others, this collection of fifty essays brings you the best of the best: incisive cultural criticism, scintillating historical analysis, and robust commentary about the way we live now. Edited by Roger Kimball, this spiritual Baedeker is a timely repository of timeless writing about the figures, controversies, and challenges that define our life in the 2020s.

Effective English integrates a strong foundation in basic language and communication skills with valuable life skills. It teaches the basic skills of reading, writing and speaking in English through discussions and examples set in the social contexts of everyday and professional life. It also explains the essentials of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling.

'A lifelong treat' Simon Garfield, Esquire A P.G. Wodehouse novel Joey Cooley is a golden-curled child film star, the idol of American motherhood. Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot, is a boxing blue on a mission to save his wayward cousin from the fleshpots of Hollywood. Both are under anaesthetic at the dentists when something strange happens - and their identities are swapped in the ether. Suddenly Joey can use his six-foot frame to get his own back on his Hollywood persecutors. But Reggie has to endure everything Joey had to put up with in the horrible life of a child star - including kidnap. Laughing Gas is Wodehouse's brilliantly funny take on the 'If I were you' theme - a wry look at the dangers of getting what you wish for in the movie business and beyond.

'A Gentleman of Leisure' concerns a young man, his love life & a burglary. Familiar Wodehouse characters from both sides of the Atlantic appear in cameo.

Engaged to Violet Waddington, heiress to 'Waddington's 97 Soups', Tony's life is thrown into chaos when his former nurse comes to pay him a visit, revealing a family secret. Tony leaves for London with Polly Brown, leaving the ancestral home in the hands of the socialist barber Syd Price.