P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

One of the funniest writers of the 20th century, PG Wodehouse shied away from a biography. Drawing on unpublished sources, this definitive edition of his letters gives an unrivalled insight into his life and his comic creations. Covering his schooldays, his family's financial troubles, his musical comedy career in New York and the unhappy episode when, interned by the Germans, he was accused of broadcasting Nazi propaganda, it is a book every fan of Jeeves and Wooster will want.

The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Red and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction. Sophie Ratcliffe is a tutor in English at Christ Church, Oxford, specialising in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. She also reviews fiction and criticism for the national press. She lives in Oxford with her husband and young son.