Wodehouse in the Globe Newspaper, 1901–1908, Volumes 1 and 2. The books are the first results of a three-year effort by an international group of Wodehouse scholars to obtain and study Wodehouse’s daily “By the Way” columns, found to have contained thousands of short paragraphs and verses attributable to him. Unseen for over 100 years and scanned from microfilm in London and Los Angeles, the colum
ns not only shed new light on an important, formative period of his career, but many display “the brilliant craftsmanship and wit for which P. Wodehouse has always been known,” according to GRP founding member John Dawson. In 2011, Sir Edward Cazalet, Wodehouse’s grandson, permitted the group to obtain a copy of Wodehouse’s 114-year-old journal, “Money Received for Literary Work,” which lists the specific days and weeks he worked at the Globe. “Since the column was written in the morning and published in the evening,” Dawson said, “Wodehouse’s journal allowed us to identify the exact 1,378 issues we were looking for. From there, our volunteers in three countries built the archive and began an intensive 3-year effort to study, discuss, and evaluate the columns.”
Volume One, By the Way, Day by Day contains some 1,300 humorous paragraphs and poems, jokes, puns, and witty Wodehousean retellings of the days news’ events. In his introduction, Dawson, who selected and edited the columns for publication, describes the complex issues involved in attributing Wodehouse’s unsigned, yet often recognizable writing. He examines the column’s daily structure and how he was able to identify Wodehouse’s likely work by identifying unique stylistic characteristics, markers, “keywords,” and other criteria. Neil Midkiff has compiled comprehensive and entertaining notes to the text, which identify the now obscure Edwardian personalities and events Wodehouse wrote about. The result is a “hilarious daily romp through the best of Wodehouse’s By the Way columns.”
Volume Two, By the Way: 200 Verses, features a sparkling trove of poems attributed to Wodehouse by an international panel of authors and experts. Edited by Tony Ring, the world’s leading authority on Wodehouse’s lyrics and poetry, the hilarious poems showcase his genius with the verse form, evident even in his early years. Ring’s commentary and learned notes provide the Edwardian perspective and bring the verses to life once again. In a remarkable introduction, Ring describes the intricate protocol used by the GRP’s five-member Poetry Review Panel to attribute the unsigned poems. By the Way: 200 Verses represents, by far, the largest body of Wodehouse’s delightful and innovative poetry ever to have been found. Norman Murphy, author of A Wodehouse Handbook and In Search of Blandings, writes: “When a team of researchers, all of whom know their Wodehouse and know precisely when Wodehouse was working at the Globe, undertake a slow, painstaking analysis of the column, then we should pay attention. And when they collectively can agree on when a paragraph has the indefinable unmistakable Wodehouse ‘touch,’ then I am confident we can accept their findings as conclusive.”
Dawson: “The books are the result of hundreds of hours of study and research by the Wodehouse authorities and experts associated with the project. We’re confident our work will enhance the cherished legacy of P. Wodehouse.”
The Trustees of the Wodehouse Literary Estate acknowledge “the significance of this important step towards understanding Wodehouse’s writing during his early years as a journalist.”
