Biography · 2004
Wodehouse: A Life
Robert McCrum
The standard modern life: fair-minded on the wartime broadcasts, rich on the work, and the biography most new readers should start with.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukReading about Plum
Lives, letters, and handbooks
The man is in the books; the books about the man are for when you want the broadcasts, the lyrics, the houses, and the working day. Each title links to Amazon.co.uk.
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Biography · 1982
P. G. Wodehouse: A Biography
Frances Donaldson
Written by a friend of Wodehouse’s stepdaughter Leonora, with unique access to private papers and a full text of the Berlin broadcasts.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 1992
P. G. Wodehouse: Man and Myth
Barry Phelps
A sharp, sometimes revisionist portrait that tests the legends Wodehouse and others told about his life.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 1974
P. G. Wodehouse: Portrait of a Master
David A. Jasen
The first full biography, published in Wodehouse’s last year, and still useful on the theatrical career.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 1981
P. G. Wodehouse: A Literary Biography
Benny Green
A musician’s-ear account of the prose, the lyrics, and the Edwardian world that fed them.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 1979
P. G. Wodehouse: An Illustrated Biography
Joseph Connolly
A pictorial life, strong on dust-jackets, photographs, and the look of the Wodehouse world.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 2004
The Novel Life of P G Wodehouse
Roderick Easdale
A compact life that keeps the books in the foreground and the myths at arm’s length.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 2009
P. G. Wodehouse: The Unknown Years
Baroness Reinhold von Bodenhausen
A personal account of Wodehouse’s internment and the German years, from someone who knew the household.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 2021
P. G. Wodehouse’s Early Years: His Life and Work 1881–1908
John Dawson
The most detailed study of the childhood, Dulwich, the bank, and the first books.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 1981
Wodehouse at War
Iain Sproat
The case for the defence on the 1941 broadcasts, drawing on official papers and arguing that naivety, not treachery, was the charge.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukLetters · 2011
P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Sophie Ratcliffe
The essential collected letters, edited with tact and scholarship: Plum on work, money, dogs, internment, and the next plot.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukLetters · 1990
Yours, Plum: The Letters of P. G. Wodehouse
Frances Donaldson
An earlier selection of letters, still worth reading alongside Ratcliffe’s fuller edition.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukLetters · 2001
P. G. Wodehouse: In His Own Words
Barry Day and Tony Ring
A mosaic of quotations, letters, and asides arranged to let Wodehouse tell the story himself.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCriticism · 1976
Wodehouse at Work to the End
Richard Usborne
The pioneering critical study, revised after Wodehouse’s death. Still the best close reading of how the comic machine is built.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 1997
Wodehouse at the Wicket
Murray Hedgcock
Cricket in the life and the fiction: Dulwich, the Authors XI, Percy Jeeves, and Mike Jackson’s finest hours.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 1981
In Search of Blandings
N. T. P. Murphy
Norman Murphy’s detective work on the real houses, clubs, and streets behind the fiction. A cornerstone of Wodehouse geography.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 2013
A Wodehouse Handbook
N. T. P. Murphy
Two-volume encyclopaedia of people, places, quotations, and allusions — the reference shelf no serious reader should be without.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 2015
The P. G. Wodehouse Miscellany
N. T. P. Murphy
A shorter Murphy: facts, lists, and sidelights, including a compact guide to the film and television adaptations.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 2019
Who's Who in Wodehouse
Daniel H. Garrison and Neil Midkiff
The character dictionary, expanded: every aunt, pig, and Drones Club member you have ever tried to place.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCriticism · 2006
P. G. Wodehouse and Hollywood
Brian Taves
The fullest account of Wodehouse’s screen work, the MGM years, and the many films made from his stories.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 2007
The Wit and Wisdom of P G Wodehouse
Tony Ring
A browsable treasury of lines, compiled by one of the UK Society’s great bibliographers.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCompanion · 2013
A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster
Nigel Cawthorne
A pocket map of the Jeeves canon: stories, novels, characters, and the best order to read them.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukEssays · 2024
The First P G Wodehouse Society (UK) Essay Prize: The Winners
Fergus Butler-Gallie, Anna Sanchez O'Brien, Dorothy McDowell, Ashley D. Polasek
The published winning and commended essays from the Society’s inaugural prize, judged by a panel chaired by Sophie Ratcliffe and including Stephen Fry.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukCriticism · 2025
Plum's Literary Heroes
Paul Kent
A recent study of the writers Wodehouse loved and looted — from Conan Doyle and W. S. Gilbert to the forgotten humorists of his youth.
Buy on Amazon.co.ukBiography · 2020
Wodehouse: Mid-Season Form
Paul Kent
Volume two of Kent’s multi-part life, covering the years when Jeeves, Blandings, and the musicals were all in flood.
Buy on Amazon.co.uk