Errata and addenda to The Millennium Wodehouse Concordance

Volume 3: Wodehouse Goes to School

p. x:

last complete paragraph, last line: change “previously appeared” to “also appeared”; Lora Delane Porter appeared in the original version of The Coming of Bill as The White Hope in Munsey’s Magazine, May 1914, before “A Prisoner of War” appeared in the March 1915 Strand.

last partial paragraph: Change “Raistrick” to Rastrick. In “Personally Conducted” Gethryn’s name is spelled Alan.

p. xiii:

GHA-JDI is titled “Jackson’s Dip!” with an exclamation point.

Pearson’s-AUH has the singular title “The Autograph Hunter” (as it also appears in Wodehouse’s account book Money Received for Literary Work)

AUT is “Author!” with an exclamation point in all editions.

GHA-HPS is “How Pillingshot Scored!” with an exclamation point.

Royal-HPT is spelled with an œ ligature: “Homœopathic Treatment”

Capt-MOC is spelled with an œ ligature: “The Manœuvres of Charteris”

GHA-OOB is “Out of Bounds!” with an exclamation point.

SCC is “Shields’ and the Cricket Cup” with a possessive apostrophe.

 

APTED, Mr.: real-life APTED, Sam (1848–1916), groundsman at the Oval 1887–1911.

ARTHUR: delete Aston from the list of companions.

ASTON: delete the cross-reference to Arthur; he is present at the roll call on the day of the Great Picnic, and is the motorist of ch. 10 of MIK.

BAKER, Home-Run: John Franklin Baker (1886–1963), American professional baseball player

BATES, Old: Abbreviation I/c means “in charge of”

BRADLEY’S ARNOLD: according to WorldCat, first published in 1881.

BRODRICK, Mr: in full, William St John Fremantle Brodrick (1856–1942), Secretary of State for War 1900–03, later Viscount Midleton, then 1st Earl Midleton.

BROWN & DAY: Should not be printed with &, as “and” appears in the original, and I believe that this refers to two separate agencies. From examination of contemporary theatrical newspapers and listings of agencies, the most prominent London variety agents of these names were Edwin “Papa” Brown, Holland House, Durand Gardens, S.W. (1909), also one of the officers of the Grand Order of Water Rats, a benevolent society of vaudeville performers; and Day’s Variety Agency, 1 Arundel Street, Strand.

BURLEIGH, Bennett (1840–1914): war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph

CHARLESWORTH, Miss: Violet Gordon Charlesworth, alleged to have been thrown over a seaside cliff in a motor accident; later accused of faking her death to avoid creditors. See The Sketch, Jan. 13, 1904, p. 3.

CLAYTHORPE refers to a village cricket team.

CLOVERDALE: add initial R.

COOKE, Mr2: replace Jephson’s with Norris’s.

CROSS, Denman: detective in stories in Chums by Herbert Maxwell.

de FREECE1: Probably Sir Abraham Walter de Freece (1870–1935), music hall impresario, husband of Vesta Tilley.

DOUGLAS, J H W T: The book just says “J. Douglas”; this seems more likely to be James “Jimmy” Douglas (1870–1958) mentioned as Jimmy in Strand-LBO and as James in Windsor-LGP; he had played for Dulwich and was later a master there. See The King and His Navy and Army magazine, July 29, 1905 for pictures and capsule bios of both. See also the errata for Volume 7 for another link.

DOYLE, Larry (1886–1974): baseball player for New York Giants and Chicago Cubs

DREW, Inspector: Edward Drew of Scotland Yard retired in 1908.

EAGLE, Solomon: religious zealot (born Solomon Eccles, 1618–1683) who roamed the streets of London half-clad crying “Repent!”

EDITH, Aunt: we know from other stories that this is Edith Riddell.

FARNIE, Reginald: First sentence is ambiguously written; amend it to conclude “Farnie is Gethryn’s fourteen-year-old uncle.” Last sentence is incorrect; amend the last phrase to “nephew Gethryn found that the avuncular influence complicated his life.”

FIELD, Geoffrey: delete “Geoffrey” and insert “Godfrey”. Norman Murphy cites him as a music hall singer who died in 1921 at age 72.

FISHER, Jerry: add reference to ISM-KIH as well.

FISHER, Smooth Sam: first sought the Little Nugget in New York in ’06, according to Munsey-TLN and Penguin reprint.

FORD, Nesta: delete “Jimmy” and insert “Bingley” in first paragraph. In ECK and Capt-THC her name is Ruth.

FOSTER: in full George Foster (c.1864–1946), theatrical agent, at 8 New Coventry St. in 1910. Represented Charles Chaplin Sr., Harry Lauder, and other music hall stars.

FRED: According to the story, Fred is the big taciturn one of the pair of seconds.

GARTRIDGE, Lord: omitted in Munsey-TLN.

GETHRYN, Allan: Next-to-last sentence should read “when his uncle Farnie disappeared.”

GOLD BAT: 1″ long by 1/8″ broad.

GRAYSON: most likely Victor Grayson (1881–1920), Socialist M.P. 1907–10.

GREY1 is the same young man as GREY, K St H.

GREY2 is a back for Ripton.

HABBESHAM-MORLEY, Edgar: a nom de plume for Dunstable, not a separate person

HANDS, Charles: a real-life reporter and war correspondent for the Daily Mail

HARPER: there is no evidence that Harper has yet left school or Ward’s house, so [Old] and [former] should be bracketed as conjecture.

HOPLEY: probably the real F. J. V. Hopley mentioned in Wodehouse’s article “Aldershot 1911” in The Captain, July 1911.

[JACKSON,] John1: References to Mike’s mother suggest he may possibly be Mike’s maternal uncle; his surname is never specified.

JACKSON, John2 (1769–1845), known as “Gentleman Jackson”

JACKSON, Mr.: delete “Worcs”, insert “Salop” (Shropshire).

JELLICOE, Tom G: add cross-references to Jane3 and John2 and to his listing as Jellicoe in Volume 7.

JEROME, Jerome K.: delete “papier-mache”; insert “plaster of Paris”.

KEGGS: add an arrow pointing above KEITH for proper alphabetical order. Fourth line from the end, “as many as six” is more accurate than “as many as three”.

KYNE, the Hon. Hildebrand: omitted in Munsey-TLN.

LAKER, Jim C.: add cross-reference to Rhodes.

McCOY (or M‘COY): The apostrophe printed in Volume 3, like most modern transcriptions, is wrong; it should be as shown here, an inverted comma (the piece of metal type with , on it, rotated 180 degrees in place), same as an opening single quotation mark. This was a printer’s convention for a superscript c as in McCoy when a font of type did not contain superscript letters. However typeset, it is pronounced as McCoy.

M‘TODD should replace M’TODD, for similar reasons.

McVEY, Connie: Corbett’s trainer in real life, who did jump into the ring during the fight on November 22, 1898.

MAISIE: celebrated in a Lionel Monckton song from The Messenger Boy (1900) at the Gaiety. “Other girls are so uncertain / When they do a bit of flirting, / But Maisie gets right there.” “Leslie Mayne,” credited as lyricist, is a pseudonym for Lionel Monckton.

MAJORIBANKS: spelled Marjoribanks in USPJI. Either spelling is pronounced “Marchbanks.”

NEVILLE-SMITH is at Cambridge in TWE-DES.

PARTRIDGE, Dwight: delete “Uncle”; insert “Father”

PARTRIDGE, Willie: delete “nephew”; insert “son”; delete “uncle’s”; insert “father’s”.

PÉLISSIER, H G (1874–1913): British theatrical producer

PICKERSGILL II: whistled “The Church Parade,” all flat (in Capt-JJR and MIK); whistled “The Lost Chord,” all flat (in MAW). No source for “eight flats” has been found.

POLICEMAN, a radical: in Capt-TWF the runabout is not capable of going faster than 12 mph.

PORTER, Lora Delane: add reference to ISM-PWA.

POTT, Captain: Identified in Norman Murphy’s A Wodehouse Handbook as a character from the 1900 Gaiety hit The Messenger Boy, a takeoff on J. Cutcliffe Hyne’s rambunctious character Captain Kettle. The sheet music shows “skulker” instead of “shirker” in the lyric by Adrian Ross.

SCOTTI, Signor: Antonio Scotti (1866–1936), Italian operatic baritone

SEYMOUR, Mr1: see PICKERSGILL II for updates on whistling.

SHADWICK seems to be a mistake for Shanklyn: see list at Willis.

SHEPHERD is a mistake in this book for SHEPPARD, Rev. Canon Edgar, DD (1845–1921), properly spelled in TSW, who did indeed hold the offices listed in TSW.

SHRUBB, Alfred (1879–1964): English distance runner

SIMPSON major: I believe the first sentence is wrongly placed here, since the Simpson of chapter 2 and 3 (not ch. 3,4) is competing in the junior quarter-mile, and there is no mention of another Simpson until Simpson major in ch. 14. In other words, the long-distance runner must be the elder brother of the junior quarter-miler.

SMITH, G O: a real athlete (1872–1943), also awarded an Oxford cricket Blue in 1896. Norman Murphy classes him as the finest soccer centre-forward of his era, and says that he was so popular that newspapers would just call him “G. O.” and all would know who they meant.

SPENCER, C F: In Kay’s house, later Dencroft’s house after the departure of Mr. Kay.

SPENLOW, Mr: a character in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.

STODDART: A. E. Stoddart (1863–1915) captained England both at cricket and rugby.

TEMPLAR, Lieutenant: described as astigmatic rather than short-sighted in TWE-DES.

TIBBITT should be spelled TIBBIT.

TRENTHAM, known as “Dick” to his sister Dorothy.

WYATT, known to his stepfather as James.

 

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Compiled by Neil Midkiff; last updated 2021-02-06
Thanks to Tony Zangara for contributions.
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