P.G. Wodehouse
If there were ever a time when I had to choose between Valium and Wodehouse, I’d choose Wodehouse without thinking. No matter how depressed, how insufferably low you may be, read something by Wodehouse. It always works. The sun will shine again.
What ho!
Pelham Grenville (P.G.) Wodehouse (pronounced “wood-house”) wrote over the course of his life 96 books, and the lyrics to around 30 musicals. Ninety-six books. 96. Good lord. In these books, he introduced a panoply of memorable comic characters and settings, including Bertie Wooster and his omnipotent butler Jeeves, Lord Emsworth and Blandings Castle, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge (pronounced Fan-shaw You-kridge), Uncle Fred the Earl of Ickenham, Psmith (silent P), Mr Mulliner and his innumerable relatives, and the Oldest Member of a Golf Club.
Wodehouse always had that perfect composition of equal parts flowing prose, sparkling characters and captivating plot, with the final dashes of pure comedic talent and an inimitable grasp of every tress of the English language, with a wisp of lightness permeating his entire body of work. It is this that makes him not only one of the most prolific writers, but also one of the most funny and cherished.
He’s been a phenomenal influence on countless writers and comedians including Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams, and will continue to do so for centuries to come (given the non-occurrence of a bookless dystopia, of course).
P.G. Wodehouse was knighted in 1975 and died aged 93 that same year, writing.
