P.G. Wodehouse: Portrait of a Master [Paperback]

David A. Jasen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2002

For more than a century, readers around the world would have been delighted by the novels, short stories, plays, lyrics and essays of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, best known as the creator of the dimwitter English gentleman Bertie Wooster and his indispensable valet, Jeeves. The definitive authorised biography of one of the greatest literary humourists of all time, first published in 1974 and now appearing in a revised, updated edition. Comprehensively illustrated, with many unique family portraits, this is the first book to trace Wodehouse's career from his first magazine contribution in 1901 through his show-business years with Jerome Kern and George Gershwin to his one hundred books that have brought so much pleasure to readers over the years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A thousand congratulations on the book. I have read it...and I can't see how it could have been improved. I am awestruck by the amount of researchyou have done. It seemed to me the ideal biography.' Letter from PG Wodehouse to the author, December 12th 1974.

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Music Sales Corporation (July 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825672759
• ISBN-13: 978-0825672750
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,929,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Passable look at P.G. Wodehouse's life, September 22, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: P.G. Wodehouse: Portrait of a Master (Paperback)

P.G. Wodehouse was one of the funniest people of the twentieth century, with his goofy peers, superbrained butlers and absurd stories. David A. Jasen clearly has done his research, but "P.G. Wodehouse: A Portrait of a Master" is merely a passable biography, not a great one.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born to an upper-class British family living in Hong Kong, although he himself was born on English soil. He and two of his siblings also went to school in England, in the care of aunts and uncles, while his parents remained on the other side of the world.

Writing was clearly in "Plum's" blood from an early age -- he wrote his first story at the age of seven. Later he gained attention for penning school stories, but he gained fame as a result of his humorous looks at the British upper-classes, most notably the dim aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his quiet, ultra-intelligent manservant Jeeves.

Any biography of Wodehouse would have to be a positive one, since he seems to have led a pretty upright life. The most scandalous thing that seems to have happened to him was being accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. And that was mainly naivete. In his everyday life, Wodehouse comes across as a nice, funny guy who was immersed in his own stories.

Despite his efforts to stay objective, Jasen comes across as a scholarly fan. He mentions just about every positive mention of Wodehouse (including from Dorothy Parker). And despite calling Wodehouse by his nickname -- "Plum" -- he remains respectful of Wodehouse's personal life, his marriage to Ethel, and his relationships with family and friends.

Unfortunately while Jasen is a good fan, he's not such a good writer. Well, he's not a bad one. But "Portrait of a Master" is very dry and sometimes even a bit desiccated. It's basically a chronological look at the events in Wodehouse's life, without much to bring them to life. And it's almost impossible to keep Wodehouse's dozens of short stories and novels straight.

Despite the uninspired writing, this is a good resource for P.G. Wodehouse fans. "P.G. Wodehouse: A Portrait of a Master" isn't too exceptional as a biography, but it's a solid collection of info for people interested in "Plum."

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plum by the Numbers, September 2, 2007

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: P.G. Wodehouse: Portrait of a Master (Paperback)

There's always a bloke in a Wodehouse novel who says to some other chap, "tell me your story, omitting no detail, however slight" or words to that effect. The first bloke might be David Jasen, as he has omitted no detail, however slight, in telling the story of PGW. If this is the case, however, one may ask why this 1974 bio was followed by Donaldson's P.G. Wodehouse: A Biography in 1982, and recently by Robert McCrum's Wodehouse: A Life in 2004. If Jasen said it all, what of these later works?

The short answer is that the modern term for biography is expose, while Jasen's, not belonging to that breed, is often dismissed as a "tribute". In music a tribute is a good thing; in books it is said with a sneer. McCrum's book is the closest yet to a Wodehouse expose, but because there actually is no secret life of scandal to reveal, he has to imply, and, I would go so far as to say, make up things. He also seems to have lifted bits of Jasen's book nearly verbatim, although sometimes out of context so as to give the opposite impression.

Each of these three bios have been updated and reissued: Jasen's in 2002, Donaldson's in 2001, McCrum's in 2005. Having read all three, I still learned things in Jasen's that are not in the others, although those later authors supposedly had access to more of the Wodehouse archives. What Jasen has which cannot be duplicated is actual interviews with Wodehouse, so much of his book is, as it were, straight from the horse's mouth. It also practically amounts to a collection of his letters, so long are the excerpts. Does this make for a boring book? Yes, it rather does, but it also makes for an accurate one. One great strength of the book is the in depth discussion of the various Wodehouse/ Bolton/ Kern musicals, not suprisingly since Jasen has written numerous books on ragtime, blues, popular song and other vintage cultural forms.

Donaldson's book is well organized, centered around the misunderstood Berlin broadcasts, which are also an interest of McCrum. Jasen's book is simply chronological, but his brief treatment of wartime still includes bits not in the other books. These bios are not the first attempted explanation of that debacle. In his foreword to the Jasen edited The Uncollected Wodehouse, Malcolm Muggeridge alludes to the incident. As early as 1961 the former editor of Punch had penned "The Wodehouse Affair" for the New Statesman, which appeared in Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes in 1966 in the UK, and in the US in The Most of Malcolm Muggeridge by Simon and Schuster.

The strength of Jasen's book is the tie between Wodehouse's life and work, the conditions in which he wrote each novel, short story, musical, etc., what he thought about it, and how it was received. As such, Jasen's book is invaluable for writers and readers whose main interest in Wodehouse is as a writer. The original edition ends with his death, and the last updated bits in the new edition seem rather tacked on. It even seems the last pages are in a different font, the sort of high tech error that would never occur on Plum's Monarch typewriter, but which word processors are heir to. Many fans of the Master will want Jasen's book simply for the extensive bibliographies. Yes, at last you can tell all the editions straight, not to mention track down the various musical collaborations. So while some may dismiss Jasen's vita as an also-ran on the turf of Plum bios, in my view it's still a contender.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Portrait of the Artist by a Fan, October 22, 2002

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Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: P.G. Wodehouse: Portrait of a Master (Paperback)

Although I've fallen off a bit on my drive to read all the Wodehouse ouvre in order, I can feel my juices beginning to bubble up about it again after reading this delightful biography of the master. I don't know what to think of Jasen as a biographer--I tend to believe that he's a poor one from the showing on this book, as he tends to simply list events in Plum's life, interspersed with excerpreted letters by and to Plum. And Jasen makes no bones that his book is an unbiased study of Wodehouse, from the subtitle to the treatment. On the other hand, I don't konw how you could treat Wodehouse in any other way, for he truly had lost any malicious bone in his body at approximately the age of 25, as if mean-spiritedness was a baby-tooth that one lost and promptly forgot about.

I bought this book years ago for its secondary bibliography, listing all the stories and books. With something roughly like 90 books to his credit, sometimes with similar titles between novels, different titles for American or British publication, and all eminently re-readable, it's quite a chore to keep them straight in one's mind. With an accurate list at hand, the only problem is finding the damn things.

I believe Frances Donaldson has written a more traditional biography (did I read it back when I first discovered Wodehouse in the stacks at the University of Texas?), which I should acquire and judge against Jasen.