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  • Published: 1 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804950272
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624

A Life in Letters

50th Anniversary Edition




A new edition of the collected letters of P.G. Wodehouse, complete with a refreshed cover look, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Britain's best-loved comic author.

Charming, witty and profound, this stylish 50th anniversary hardback edition of A LIFE IN LETTERS is the perfect addition to any Wodehouse-lover's bookcase.

'The letters, gossipy in the kindliest, most amused/bemused manner, bear true witness to the wide-ranging influences on Wodehouse's' best-known novels and best-loved characters.' THE TIMES

***

The definitive edition of P.G. Wodehouse's collected letters, edited with commentary by Oxford academic Sophie Ratcliffe.

One of the funniest and most admired writers of the twentieth century, P. G. Wodehouse always shied away from the idea of a biography. A quiet, retiring man, he expressed himself through the written word. His letters - collected and expertly edited here - provide an illuminating biographical accompaniment to legendary comic creations such as Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Psmith and the Empress of Blandings.

Drawing on previously unpublished sources, these letters give an unrivalled insight into Wodehouse, covering his schooldays at Dulwich College, the family's financial reverses which saw his hopes of university dashed, life in New York working in musical comedy with Jerome Kern and George and Ira Gershwin, the years of fame as a novelist, and the unhappy episode in 1940 where he was interned by the Germans and later erroneously accused of broadcasting pro-Nazi propaganda.

  • Published: 1 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804950272
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624

About the author

P.G. Wodehouse

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as ‘Plum’) wrote about seventy novels and some three hundred short stories over seventy-three years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler’s Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for ‘having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged ninety-three, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine’s Day.

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