PG Day
Today(October 15th) is the birthday of P.G. Wodehouse. He was born on this date in 1881 which would make him 124 years old today. In 1935 -at the age of 54- Wodehouse published two books - Blandings Castle and Luck of the Bodkins. I've just completed Blandings Castle. It consists of several Blandings stories featuring the hapless Lord Emsworth and his prize-winning pumpkin and pig. According to Richard Usborne's Plum Sauce, these stories first appeared between 1924 and 1931. The stories also feature the marriage of Lord Emsworth's feckless son, Freddie Threepwood, to the daughter of an American millionaire who markets dog biscuits. Freddie's efforts to bring "Donaldson's Dog-Joy" to England and promote the product with a help of a bag of rats are featured in the stories.
Wodehouse's best known work, of course, involves Jeeves and Wooster. But the universes of Lord Emsworth and Bertie Wooster intersect. In the story "Company for Gertrude", we learn of the romance of the Rev. Rupert "Beefy" Bingham. Beefy Bingham's clean, bright entertainment forms the background for Bertie and Tuppy Glossop's misadventures in "Jeeves and the Song of Songs." In its September 21, 1935 issue, The New Yorker called Blandings Castle "[s]tray odds and ends for the faithful."
The balance of Blandings Castle consists of a Bobbie Wickham story (another character from the universe of Bertie Wooster) and several Mulliner stories which are set in Hollywood. "The Castways" -like the others in this group - is set at the Perfecto-Zizzbaum studio where the characters are bamboozled into working on the script of Scented Sinners. Wodehouse himself had worked at MGM as a screenwriter in the early 1930s. The description given in "Castaways" of the predicament of Bulstrode Mulliner appears to accurately summarize Wodehouse's exprerience of Hollywood:
He was not unhappy. A good deal has been written about the hardships of life in motion-picture studios, but most of it, I am glad to say, is greatly exaggerated. The truth is that there is little or no actual ill-treatment of the writing staff, and the only thing that irked Bulstrode was the loneliness of the life.
Happy Birthday, PG!!!!!
Wodehouse's best known work, of course, involves Jeeves and Wooster. But the universes of Lord Emsworth and Bertie Wooster intersect. In the story "Company for Gertrude", we learn of the romance of the Rev. Rupert "Beefy" Bingham. Beefy Bingham's clean, bright entertainment forms the background for Bertie and Tuppy Glossop's misadventures in "Jeeves and the Song of Songs." In its September 21, 1935 issue, The New Yorker called Blandings Castle "[s]tray odds and ends for the faithful."
The balance of Blandings Castle consists of a Bobbie Wickham story (another character from the universe of Bertie Wooster) and several Mulliner stories which are set in Hollywood. "The Castways" -like the others in this group - is set at the Perfecto-Zizzbaum studio where the characters are bamboozled into working on the script of Scented Sinners. Wodehouse himself had worked at MGM as a screenwriter in the early 1930s. The description given in "Castaways" of the predicament of Bulstrode Mulliner appears to accurately summarize Wodehouse's exprerience of Hollywood:
He was not unhappy. A good deal has been written about the hardships of life in motion-picture studios, but most of it, I am glad to say, is greatly exaggerated. The truth is that there is little or no actual ill-treatment of the writing staff, and the only thing that irked Bulstrode was the loneliness of the life.
Happy Birthday, PG!!!!!
posted by Whistling Dixie at 10:25 AM
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