Wasn’t Wodehouse extremely popular in America before the war? I believe his book were fairly popular, and I know his comedies/musicals on Broadway were popular. I have no idea what these comedies portrayed but knowing Wodehouse they probably weren’t much different from his same old stuff.
I dont expect his novels were often read in the ghettoes of New York, but US society was diverse enough to have a substantial middle class reading public. He moved to the US. This suggests he was popular enough in those parts. I admit I am not posting with any great knowledge of the subject.
You failed to understand me whatsoever. I never said that PG Wodehouse is an elitist (that he himself lacked an appreciation of ordinary things). I said that he portrays, and gently celebrates, the hereditary idle rich, a class of peculiarly useless person which both fascinates and repels modern day Americans.
Whether or not Wodehouse was popular in the US at one time, he is not popular now, and the strong thread of anti-europeanism, anti-intellectualism, anti-urbanism, and anti-elitism running through American culture today (disturbingly so, many feel) indicate Wodehouse would never be able to become popular right now.
For the record, I like PG Wodehouse, and have read a great many “Jeeves” books. I have nothing against the man or his works. I find them funny. I only hypothesize the reasons why Americans, today, on the whole, do not.
Right on. A little of Wodehouse goes a very long way, no matter how deft his individual sentences might be. I found that the more of him I read the less of him I could read.
Me too, but 52 years old. Based on this thread, sounds like someone I might enjoy taking a look at. But the OP asked if he was popular in our country. For me, in the U.S., I’d have to say no. Not one bit.
I discovered Wodehouse when I was about 14. Adored him, read everything of his I could get my hands on. My closest friend and I would hang out in coffee houses and read his works to one another and laugh till we were crying. I loved (and still do) his facility with language and employ some of his colorful expressions to this day. I have an extensive collection of his works… would never part with them.
I always viewed his work as pure escapism. It still has that effect for me.
In addition to Wodehouse, my favorite stylistic humorists are science fiction writer Jack Vance and motor sports journalist Henry Manney, both of whom readily acknowledged being influenced by Wodehouse.
Ukridge is more an anomaly in the Wodehousian stable of characters than an exception to his sunny utopia. He may be in constant need of “a little capital”, but he lives a good life amid the comfortable working and privileged classes. His benefactor Corky is a successful writer, George Tupper is a diplomat in the Foreign Office, and above all his Aunt Julia is wealthy and famous and lives in a well-buttled grand house in Wimbledon Common. One gathers that Ukridge is more than welcome to live there, too, and frequently does, enjoying all the amenities. Julia is happy to provide for him. That it always ends with him being thrown out into the street due to some grievous transgression is invariably his own fault. And even in between his residencies at Wimbledon, in his own humble quarters his landlord Bowles is a former butler who shows an inexplicable butlerene deference to Ukridge. This is Wodehouse – you cannot get away from butlers!
Yes, I know (Lord knows, I read enough Wodehouse to get the basics! :D). It seemed right to pluralize it because it felt like I was pluralizing a usage instance, not the currency itself, but in retrospect I see that wasn’t really true. Saying “Wodehouse frequently writes of butlers, maids, pounds, shillings, and bob” didn’t feel right (it still feels awkward) but now that I think about it that’s what it properly should have been, you’re quite correct.
I think Wodehouse is more popular in the United States than some may realize. A specialty publisher, The Overlook Press, is printing very nice hardcover editions of Wodehouse’s books – although they’re the same books as those published in the U.K. by Everyman’s Library. There are 94 titles (including short story and multi-book collections) so far – I’d think if they weren’t popular in North America, Overlook would’ve stopped publishing them some time ago.
I’ve been collecting the Overlook editions for seven or eight years – they’re quite nice editions of Wodehouse’s works (and very reasonably priced, in my mind, considering the quality of the binding and paper, to say nothing of the contents). I’ve seen them in libraries and for sale at brick and mortar bookstores, and Amazon carries them as well, of course.
Reading this thread has prompted me to think about how I first started reading Wodehouse, and I’ll be dashed if I can remember. A Jeeves and Wooster novel was certainly my first, and it was most likely Code of the Woosters. I’m fairly certain that I read a few of the books before watching Fry and Laurie’s most excellent adaptations via Netflix (I later bought the DVDs).
Yes, Overlook and Everyman are quite nice editions. I have some of both in my own collection (I vaguely recall having to order some of them from the UK due to availability issues here for whatever reason.) My collection is currently a mixture of those, the Penguin paperbacks that I first started with, and the increasing number of original editions that I’ve been amassing ever since I went nuts and became obsessed!
I also have one title that is a reprint in the “Autograph Series” that was produced by Herbert Jenkins in the 60s. It has no real intrinsic value as a collector’s item but it was the only reasonable way to get “Louder and Funnier” without spending a bloody fortune, the book being fairly rare and grossly overpriced in the original 1932 Faber & Faber edition. And I have to say that Overlook produces a nicer reprint in terms of binding and paper and the overall feel of the book than Herbert Jenkins did with the Autograph series.
Best editions are the Herbert Jenkins originals from the 1920s to '30s, The chunky ones with wide spacing and etched outline drawings on the front board.
Worst editions were the 1950s? to '60s Barrie & Jenkins, like government issue, thin books, tight typescript and an ineffable air of modish '6os meanness. They make me sick to look at them.
Earlier publishers like Newnes had the heft of Jenkins, but less polished ( but Newnes although an OK publisher always inclined to an inexpensive look ). Herbert Jenkins himself wrote humour, of a rather sentimental sort ( a series about a pre & post WWI dustman called Bindle — not totally dissimilar to Ian Hay’s style ) and he used the same house binding for all his works.
Parallel are the Penguin paperbacks, usually in fiction’s orange and white in the '50s and '60s with a coy little drawing, didn’t wear well; then 60’s to '70s maybe a photograph from a TV adaption, then in the '80s a full drawing like this.
But if a paperback is all that’s handy, it’s better than nothing.
The Penguin paperbacks that I started with when I first started collecting Wodehouse were the ones that were published roughly in the 60s through the 80s, and most of them featured beautiful covers by Chris Riddell. Here’s a picture I Googled that shows three examples of “Lord Emsworth and Others”. The one in the middle is the Penguin I’m referring to with the Riddell cover, long out of print. They were pretty nice for paperbacks. The one on the right is the Overlook (or Everyman, in the UK) hardcover that is currently available and a good buy for the budding young Wodehouse fan just starting out in the world. The one on the left is the newer Penguin which may or may not be available but I don’t like them very much compared to the older ones.
I never even looked closely enough to notice that it was a cow or I’d have realized the significance!
(For non-fanatics of Wodehouse, a hideous silver creamer in the shape of a cow (and I believe thus referred to throughout as “the silver cow-creamer”) featured prominently in the intrigue of Code of the Woosters.
