To begin, I owe a great debt to P. G. Wodehouse’s step-grandson, Sir Edward Cazalet, and to the Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate. I have been fortunate enough to have had the Estate’s wholehearted support combined with complete editorial freedom. My grateful thanks also to the entire Cazalet family – Camilla, David, Hal and Lara – for their warmth, patience and encouragement as the project progressed.
In 2004, Robert McCrum’s biography, Wodehouse: A Life, appeared. It contains a wealth of new material about Wodehouse. My book often draws on his knowledge and prior research; I am grateful for his enthusiasm and generosity throughout the time I have been working on this book.
I have benefited hugely from the kindness of two experts in the field of Wodehouse studies. Lt. Colonel Norman Murphy, author of, among others, the superb Wodehouse Handbook, has patiently and with great humour commented on drafts, saved me from numerous errors and omissions, and provided vital and fascinating advice on the context surrounding Wodehouse’s writing life. Tony Ring, author of The Wit and Wisdom of P. G. Wodehouse and co-editor of The Wodehouse Concordance, has also been extraordinarily generous with his time, knowledge, and the contents of his archive. He again has corrected and augmented numerous drafts of this book with a razor-sharp eye for detail, and has been particularly helpful in discussing both Wodehouse’s financial affairs and his theatrical ventures. Without the knowledge and kindness of both these men this would have been a far lesser book, and the writing of it far less enjoyable. Grateful thanks, also, both to Elin Murphy for her generous support, and her timely help with the introduction, and to Elaine Ring, for her own wisdom, wit and kindness. All errors, of course, remain mine.
My editor, Anthony Whittome, rightly saw the way in which this book should be constructed. He has been astute, critical, patient and unfailingly encouraging. I have been enormously fortunate to work with him. My thanks, also, to Caroline Gascoigne, Joanna Taylor, Neil Bradford, Phil Brown, and Paulette Hearn at Hutchinson. I am also grateful to my editor Ryan Harrington, at W. W. Norton, for overseeing the publication of the American edition.
To my agent, Peter Straus, at Rogers, Coleridge & White, grateful thanks for his incisive intelligence, advice and forbearance, from the genesis of this book to its completion.
I have benefited from the generosity of three institutions during the course of editing this book. The British Academy permitted me to combine my Postdoctoral research with my research on this Wodehouse edition. Keble College provided financial and intellectual support in the early stages of the book. Christ Church – my current academic home – generously provided a grant to enable its completion.
I must also thank the following libraries for allowing me access to material in their collections: the Henry W. and A. Albert Berg Collection of English and American Literature at The New York Public Library (Berg); the Louis Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill); the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library (Chicago); The Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University (Columbia); the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (Cornell); Dulwich College Archives (Dulwich); Emsworth Museum, Emsworth Maritime and Historical Trust, Emsworth, Hampshire (Emsworth); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (Morgan); Oriel College Archive, Oxford (Oriel); Oxford University Archives, Bodleian Library, Oxford (OUA); Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Texas (Ransom); Special Collections, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (Southern Illinois); UCL Library Services, London (UCL); Wheaton College Special Collections, Wheaton, Illinois (Wheaton).
Finding certain Wodehouse letters has proved a challenge. I have been helped greatly by the following people: Tony Aldridge of Hawthorn Books, Curtis Armstrong, James Bantin, Hilary Bruce, Gus Caywood, Jeff Coates, Mark Everett, Kris Fowler, Mike Griffith, S. Richard Heymann, Mark Hinton, Christopher Langley, Calista Lucy, Mellors and Kirk Auctioneers, Rupert Neelands at Christie’s, Michael Pointon, Matthew Prichard, Peter Selley and Meg Ford at Sotheby’s, Tim Straker, Lucia Stuart, Dr Richard Sveum, Kristin Thompson, Barbara Way and Mandy Wise. I am grateful to Pauline Grant for all her help with negotiating the Wodehouse archive and for the copying of many letters.
Particular thanks to Nigel Wodehouse, Dr Ronald Levine, Richard Perceval-Maxwell and Tom Sharpe. I am also enormously grateful to the descendants of Alice Dovey – Linda Eaton and Ann Garland – and the grandchildren of Leslie Havergal Bradshaw – Dove and Timothy Bradshaw – who have provided vital new material and letters. Reinhild von Bodenhausen’s record of her time with Wodehouse, P. G. Wodehouse: The Unknown Years, has also proved immensely useful. I am grateful for her permission to quote from this work and from her mother’s diaries.
Many individuals have helped with queries, a number of them responding with dizzying speed and accuracy. These include Mary Alexander, Dorothy Bone, Susan Collicott, John Dawson, Peter Day, Daniel Garrison, Murray Hedgcock, David Jasen, Sara Kinsey, Ian Michaud, Christopher Pelling, Rob Petre, Jeremy Schuman, Colin Shindler and Jean Tillson.
The collation and transcription of these letters was a large task. I have been ably assisted by Alice Ferns, James Fotherby, Soraya Gillani, Kirsty Martin, Thomas Morris, Andrew Murray and Kate Womersley. I take it as a testament to the continuing interest in Wodehouse as a writer that numerous Oxford undergraduates volunteered to give up their time to help with the sorting of thousands of letters. My particular thanks to Charlie Annis, Roxanne Brennan, Alexander Bubb, Kate Derycker, Simone Docherty, Kayleigh Fitzgerald, Rebecca Gibson, Holly Guest, Alexandra Hawley, Isla Jeffrey, Lauren Johnson, Hannah Martin and Martin Parlett.
I have, throughout this process, had the good fortune to have the most intellectually imaginative and committed research assistant in the shape of Miranda Ward. I cannot begin to thank her for everything that she has done, above and beyond the call of duty. A number of the discoveries in this book are hers.
On a personal level I owe thanks to many colleagues and friends, including Sally Bayley, Jonathan Bickford, Mishtooni Bose, Marc Brodie, Paddy and Rebecca Bullard, Christopher and Gillian Butler, Rachel Buxton and Jenny Wheeldon, Xander Cansell, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Claudia Fitzgerald, Susan and Nigel Fotherby, Ralph Hanna, Clive James, John Lyon, Peter McDonald, Edward Mendelson, John Mitchinson, Diane Purkiss, Olwen Renowden, Deborah Rogan, Richard Rutherford, Helen Small and Brian Young. Research in American archives and libraries was made possible through the generous hospitality and friendship of Philip Rosenbaum and Erin Blondel.
Six people who helped to make this book in different ways are not here to see the end result: my father Andrew Ratcliffe, whose copy of The Inimitable Jeeves was the first Wodehouse I ever read; Nigel Williams provided access to hard-to-discover Wodehouse letters; Patrick Wodehouse kindly provided me with crucial family material; Angus Thuermer looked for photographs and letters; Alan Schuman saw the point of this book and was its unwavering champion; Frederick Vincent, a true gentleman, swapped his favourite Wodehouse novels with me some years before this book began.
My mother and step-father, Rel and Harry Cowen, have been unstinting with their time and love to help me to get this book finished. Yvonne Leeds has been a steadfast support, full of good sense and humour. I couldn’t have managed without her. Two-year-old Ivo Schuman has provided many diversions, and has been a constant reminder of the importance of the life that surrounds all letters. His sister, Ottilie, showed consideration and chutzpah in equal measure, timing her arrival to coincide with that of the second proofs.
Finally, and most of all, my thanks to my husband, Dr Andrew Schuman. The editing of this book has spanned all the years he has known me, and he has given up night after night to researching, deciphering handwriting, proofing and correcting. He tenaciously followed missing leads long after I had given them up, and made a number of crucial discoveries as a result. He has brought much intelligence, imagination and belief to this project. Thanks are far too small for what I owe him, but I send them anyway, with – as ever and always – all of my love.