This article by Tom Sharpe was published in the Literary Review, September 1990.
YOURS PLUM A SELECTION OF WODEHOUSE LETTERS
Edited by Frances Donaldson (Century Hutchinson 320pp £16.99)
IT IS A worrying sign of the decline in the standards of British publishing that this weird collection of P G Wodehouse’s letters is being offered for sale by Century Hutchinson. And this at a time when his novels are selling extremely well in the Penguin edition and Wodehouse himself is recognised throughout the entire world as the greatest comic novelist of the century. Weird is the only word for Yours Plum which has purportedly been edited by Lady Donaldson, the author of the excellent authorised biography P G Wodehouse, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1982. Frankly I find it difficult to believe that she had much to do with the actual layout and editing of the letters and, although she claims responsibility in the Introduction, I suspect that the actual responsibility for the faults lies with the accountants at Century Hutchinson.
Examples of these faults are to be found everywhere; in the organisation of the book which seems designed almost deliberately to confuse the reader; in the lack of adequate addresses for many of the letters; in the unevenness of the letters themselves and in so many other ways. For instance the book is divided into three parts. Part One has two sections, the first devoted to Plum’s letters to his step-daughter Leonora and the second to Denis Mackail, a novelist friend. There are 47 letters to Leonora and seven to Mackail, and these cover 80 pages. Part Two is entitled WAR and consists of 41 letters to various friends such as Mackail and Plum’s old study-mate at Dulwich, Bill Townend, and gets 26 pages. It is when we reach Part Three that confusion really begins; there are 14 sections beginning with one called ETHEL (Lady Wodehouse) and ending appropriately with THE END. After that come the Appendices. The ETHEL letters are not addressed to her though we’ve just come from the LEONORA section where the letters were written to Leonora. But, no, the ETHEL letters are about Ethel. Or rather they are about Plum giving money to his impecunious friend Townend and telling him not to let Ethel know. The same when he gives money to Guy Bolton with whom he collaborated practically all his working life on plays. Or they are about what Ethel thinks about Pekes, both Plum and Ethel being Peke fanatics. There is even one absolutely fascinating letter in which Plum writes about the number of hours Ethel has just spent watering the garden. I mean this really is deeply revealing stuff. Mind you, I don’t know what it reveals except the peculiar interests of Lady Donaldson or the Century Hutchinson accountants or just possibly what they think the poor dim reader will find interesting.
But let’s leave that section for a bit and hit one that looks quite genuinely interesting. It’s number 17 of Part Three and is called SPIRITUALISM. Now very few people had any idea that Wodehouse was ‘into’ spiritualism and we’re about to learn something fascinating and new. The devil we are. I very much doubt if any buyer of the book will fail to feel short-changed by this section. SPIRITUALISM consists of 2 letters and a very slight paragraph by Lady Donaldson to spread the section onto a second page. I’ll quote those two letters in full. They are addressed to Townend and are dated December 1925 and March 1927 and we are actually allowed to know where Plum wrote them. Here goes. 1) ‘I’ve got the Bradley book. I want to talk to you about Spiritualism. I think it’s the goods.’ and 2) ‘That was rather queer about the planchette and Kate Overy. Do you remember she and her brother both committed suicide. I knew her fairly well. Have you had any more results?’ Now to do her justice Lady Donaldson does help us over the Bradley book but the reader is left to wonder who on earth the tragic Kate Overy was. But that is typical. In the review copy I was sent there is no index and only a few helpful footnotes which I happen to know were contributed by Col N Murphy, the human encyclopedia on matters Wodehousean. I trust he will receive some acknowledgement. Certainly there seems to be no sign of one for Mrs Margaret Slythe, the Librarian at Dulwich College who has taken excellent care of so many of the letters used in this meagre book.
But there is something even worse about this selection. Lady Donaldson has stated unequivocally in her biography and again, though in different words, in the introduction to Yours Plum that, to use Anthony Powell’s expression, she has always regarded Wodehouse as an ‘inspired imbecile’, a literary low-brow and an intellectual dimwit. Having read so many of the fascinating letters not included in this book but available to students in the library at Dulwich, I can only suppose that her selection was chosen to make that very point. This reader has the impression that, although an avowed Socialist (the fact is repeated in this book), she cannot have the slightest idea what it means to have to write for one’s living and to rely solely on book sales rather than patronage for one’s income. Most importantly she also doesn’t seem to understand a man like Wodehouse who deplored ‘side’, pretension, intellectual phoneyness and all the aesthetic twaddle that has too often passed for ‘Literature’ or ‘Art’ in this barbaric century. Having met her I find this difficult to believe. The fault for this appallingly meagre selection must lie with the publishers, Century Hutchinson. Let us just hope that the angry outcry from a disappointed public will persuade the accountants there to give Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse his proper due with a collected edition of all his letters. Perhaps too, the next Archbishop of Canterbury will have the good sense and goodness of heart to give P G W his rightful place in Poet’s Corner.