PG Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Sophie Ratcliffe
PG Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
One of the most popular 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 by Oxford academic Sophie Ratcliffe — provide an illuminating biographical accompaniment to legendary comic creations such as Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Psmith and the Empress of Blandings.
4.5 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Literary Studies & Criticism, Biography, Essays, Journals & Letters |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
624 |
| RRP |
£30.00 |
| Date of Publication |
November 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0091796341 |
| Publisher |
Hutchinson |
| |
One of the most popular 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 by Oxford academic Sophie Ratcliffe — provide an illuminating biographical accompaniment to legendary comic creations such as Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Psmith and the Empress of Blandings.
PG Wodehouse: A life in letters | Sophie Ratcliffe | Guardian (5/11/11)
Reviews
The Literary Review
Roger Kimball
"Ratcliffe aimed, she tells us in her introduction, to produce a volume that would appeal to academics as well as that elusive beast, the General Reader. And she has succeeded marvellously ... There is, perhaps, just a tiny bit of Florence Craye in Ratcliffe. Florence kept chivvying Bertie Wooster to read books like Types of Ethical Theory, and our esteemed editor wants us to regard Wodehouse as 'a brilliant scholar', who had 'an immense grasp of literature, philosophy and Classics'. In his Hollywood years, she says: 'One can see Wodehouse emerging, in this era of cultural pronouncements, as a cultural critic in the making.' Can one? ... Wodehouse was not a scholar. Much less was he an intellectual..."
01/10/2011
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The Sunday Times
John Carey
" “I sometimes feel as if I were a case of infantilism,” PG Wodehouse confided to a friend in 1933. Reading these letters, you can see why. He was infatuated with his old school, Dulwich College, and recalled his time there as a kind of nirvana ... What caused him to be so retarded is clarified by Sophie Ratcliffe’s sympathetic commentary ... Hers is a model edition, tracing the rise and fall of a writer who allowed his imagined world to eclipse the real."
13/11/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Philip Hensher
"Wodehouse’s naivety is not in question — this volume is full of examples of it. Writing in April 1939: “Do you know, a feeling is gradually stealing over me that the world has never been farther from a war than it is at present.” ... The letters reveal a more complex, somewhat angrier, more venal character than the novels care to, and give an interestingly enriched self-portrait. The volume has been well selected and edited by Sophie Ratcliffe, with only a couple of errors of taste"
06/11/2011
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The Times
Iain Finlayson
"Sophie Ratcliffe admits that Wodehouse’s life and works do not always perfectly coincide: “Do you find that your private life affects your work? I don’t,” he wrote to a friend in 1945. Nevertheless, this authoritative edition of generous selections — from “Plum’s” prolific pen, from schooldays at Dulwich College in 1899 throughout his long Anglo-American career as a novelist and musical comedy lyricist to his last letters from Long Island in 1975 — is acutely attuned to his contradictions of character and his desire to please at the expense of absolute veracity."
12/11/2011
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