London Daily Mail, April 10, 1928
 

P. G. Wodehouse Reveals How His Gaily Comic Stories Are Written.

Jeeves, the “Gentleman’s Gentleman,” is Very Troublesome—How He Arrived on the Novelist’s Horizon—Early Days in London—A Surprise in America—Writing in Attics and Wood-houses.

 

ON entering the room, I merely remarked to Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, who rose easily from his chair to receive me:
  “You’ve got much thinner”
when . . . well, it was obvious I could have had his entire library simply by asking for it.

He beamed through his glasses a warm, kindly brotherly smile, and treated me generally as though I were as welcome as a publisher. Despite the fact that P. G. Wodehouse is a fine, well-built figure, for some years now he has become curious to discover the exact location of his waistline.

Having made fast friends with him by thus congratulating him on the progress of his search, I started a terrific inquisition of the origins, natures, and possible existences of such well-known people as Jeeves, Mulliner, and the glorious, jolly Bill the Conqueror.

“None of my characters exists in real life; in fact, I have never attempted to draw a character from life,” he said.

I was staggered. “Do you mean that there is no such person as Jeeves?”

He smiled patiently, almost resignedly. “No, of course, there’s no such person so far as I know. I heard from someone about a curious fellow and, you know, I got one idea and then along came another, and eventually Jeeves vaulted lightly over the horizon.”

A CHARACTER OF FINE DIGNITY.

“P. G.” removed his pipe and, half smiling, half serious, addressed himself to the study of Jeeves, possibly the most convincing of his “creations,” now known as well to Americans as to English people.

“Jeeves is quite the most troublesome of my family of characters. You see, Jeeves, whose duty it is to uphold the finest traditions of English valets, cannot be expected to do anything unsuited to his fine dignity, nor, in his capacity of counsellor, can he be asked to solve those problems of life which are unworthy of his very exceptional gifts.”

And I thought of Jeeves setting his great brain to the retrieving of a lost sock or a stud gone astray. Pah!

EN ROUTE TO LONG ISLAND.

Then Mr. Wodehouse, who for 12 years has owned a house on Long Island, New York’s “millionaires’ suburb,” told me of his very early days, with precisely the same dry humour that has made his books, his short stories and his plays so much liked, and has enabled him to compile a very considerable fortune.

“In my first year as a writer on a London evening paper,” he said, “what with one thing and another, I made altogether about £200. Then I got into my stride and made steady progress, earning another £200 the second year. The following year I got really going and made probably £400, and eventually reached £700 in one year.

“About that time I thought it would be a good idea to go to America for my holidays. I went, and I sold a story for an astonishing price after I had been there a few days. I promptly wrote to my paper saying how well I was doing in New York and how long I proposed to stay there.

“From then on I did fairly well writing lyrics for plays, and short stories, and all sorts of things.”

WAYS OF AN AUTHOR.

At this point we were invited upstairs to tea, and there I was ably assisted by Miss Leonora Wodehouse, his youthful daughter.

She told me some quaint stories about “Plummy,” as she calls her father. “He loves being uncomfortable,” she commented, as though her affectionate victim were not seated a few feet from her beaming happily through his glasses. And she told of his affection for writing in attics and in such uncomfortable places as woodhouses, where the logs are kept for the winter fires.

“But the crowning example of his love of uncomfortableness,” she said, “occurred some years ago when he and Mummy had returned from America.

“Everybody else was comfortably seated in the train at Southampton shortly after the ship had docked when, at the very last minute, Plummy announced that he would not come up to London on the train, and he didn’t. Mother came to London and went to an hotel for the night with all the baggage and things.

A SUDDEN FANCY.

“Late on the following morning he arrived at the hotel, looking just a little weary. ‘I’m awfully sorry, my dear,’ he said to Mother, ‘but I was so tired I fell off when I got to Knightsbridge and stayed the night at an hotel there.’

“ ‘You say you fell off?’ Mother asked, puzzled.

“ ‘Yes, dear,’ went on Mr. Wodehouse, ‘the idea struck me in Portsmouth to cycle up to London. I wanted to challenge the passing years. So I bought a second-hand bicycle cheap, for £12 12s., and tried to cycle the 77½ miles, but the last half beat me. I was so tired I fell off. The bicycle’s outside.’

“Actually, it wasn’t, for it had been stolen.”

P. M.