P.G. Wodehouse

1881-1975

Birthplace, Guildford, Surrey, SE England, UK

Typewriter: Royal desktop* (from the 40's) Educated in London, Wodehouse worked in a bank, then became a freelance writer. He made his name with Psmith, Journalist (1912), Piccadilly Jim (1918), and other stories. His best-known works fall within his ‘country house’ period, involving the creation of Bertie Wooster and his ‘gentleman's gentleman’ Jeeves, as in Right Ho, Jeeves (1934), Quick Service (1940), and The Mating Season (1949). A prolific writer, he produced a succession of over 100 novels, as well as many short stories, sketches, librettos, and lyrics for the likes of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. During World War 2 he was captured and interned in Germany, and incautiously agreed to make broadcasts for the Germans, and though they were harmless he was branded as a traitor. Eventually his name was cleared, and he then made America his home, where the climate allowed him to indulge his passion for golf. He became a US citizen in 1955, and was knighted in 1975, just weeks before his death. In his mid-forties, at work with his beloved Monarch typewriter. Wodehouse next to the Royal desk model in Paris at the end of the War, in 1945.







Wodehouse with his Royal electric typewriter in his study. The photograph was taken in 1975, one week before his death













