Today's Birthdays: October 15

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse), 1881–1975, English-American novelist and humorist.

For over 70 years Wodehouse entertained readers with his comic novels and stories set in an England that is forever Edwardian and featuring idiotic youths, feckless debutantes, redoubtable aunts, and stuffy businessmen. He was most famous for his many novels about Bertie Wooster and his unflappable valet Jeeves. The “Jeeves” novels include The Inimitable Jeeves (1924), Bertie Wooster Sees It Through (1955), and Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971). In addition to his works of fiction, Wodehouse was a lyricist who collaborated with Jerome Kern, and contributed to the books of several other musicals, including Anything Goes (1934). Wodehouse emigrated to the United States in 1910 and became a citizen in 1955. In 1941, while he was a prisoner of the Germans, he made five broadcasts for his captors. He was knighted shortly before his death in 1975.

Bibliography:

See his autobiographical Author! Author! (1962; originally pub. as Performing Flea, 1953); biography by D. A. Jasen (1974); studies by R. A. Usborne (1961), R. B. D. French (1966), R. A. Hall, Jr. (1974), and B. Green (1981).

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