Errata and addenda to The Millennium Wodehouse Concordance

Volume 6: Wodehouse in Woostershire

 

p. xiii: (only punctuation changes)

COJ— Carry On, Jeeves!

VGJ — Very Good, Jeeves!

USCOJ — Carry On, Jeeves!

p. xiv:

MOJ — Much Obliged, Jeeves

USTYJ — Thank You, Jeeves!

p. xv:

Strand — Thank You, Jeeves!
Cosmo — Thank You, Jeeves!

SatEvePost — Right-Ho, Jeeves

DailMail TCW: Initial date is 8-9/38

Add entry for Ring for Jeeves in Star, 5-9/53.

p. xvi:

All’s Well — Second part of Bingo and the Little Woman

p. xvii:

Brother Alfred — Add cross-ref to Rallying Round Old George

Doing Clarence a Bit of Good — Add cross-ref to Rallying Round Clarence

Episode of the Dog McIntosh — Add cross-refs to Jeeves and the Dog McIntosh, The Borrowed Dog

Fixing It for Freddie — Add cross-ref to Helping Freddie

Great Fat Uncle Contest — Add cross-ref to Stylish Stouts

Helping Freddie — Add cross-refs to Fixing It for Freddie, Lines and Business

p. xviii:

Jeeves and the Blighter — [delete “and”]

Jeeves and the Greasy Bird — add WOJ

Jeeves and the Love that Purifies — add VGJ,USVGJ,JOM,WOJ

Jeeves and the Spot of Art — add VGJ,USVGJ,JOM,WOJ

Leave It to Algy — Add cross-ref to The Ordeal of Bingo Little and vice versa

Lines and Business — Add cross-ref to Helping Freddie

p. xix:

Rallying Round Clarence — Add cross-ref to Doing Clarence a Bit of Good

Under Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch— delete “and”: Jeeves the Blighter

Stylish Stouts — Add cross-ref to The Great Fat Uncle Contest; title is Stylish Stout in Playboy

 

AT SCHOOL WITH BERTIE WOOSTER: under Malvern House add Chuffy Chuffnell, TYJ ch 2

BERKELEY: the previous guest...: change “cigarette lighter” to “cigarette case”

BLENNERHASSET, Lord: Add cross-refs to Lord Lennerhasset and Earl of Ippleton.

[BODKIN,] Percy: His surname is almost certainly not Bodkin, since that is his sister Amelia’s husband’s surname.

BURGESS, Mary: add “Courted by Hubert Wingham.”

CHINGACHGOOK: add cross-references to Volumes 7 and 8 in addition to Volume 5.

CHOOSE YOUR EXIT: The title of the show is a humorous takeoff on the mandatory Fire Notice that appeared at the beginning of every New York City theatrical program. “Look around now, choose the nearest exit to your seat, and in case of disturbance...walk (do not run) to that exit.”

COOK, Dr.: This is the Arctic explorer Dr. Frederick A. Cook (1865–1940), who claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908 but was widely disbelieved.

CRAYE, Douglas: Omit the phrase “serving in a line regiment” as that refers to the late Mr. Darrell, not Douglas Craye.

CRAYE, Edwin: At end of first paragraph, “friendly” means quite a bit of time together: she introduces him to the pleasures of New York (theatre, drink, cigars) and to gambling in Nice.

DARNBOROUGH: This is William Nelson Darnborough (1869–1958) who gambled at Monte Carlo from 1904–11, winning quite a bit at the roulette tables.

DUGAN, Mary: leading character in Bayard Veiller’s 1927 play The Trial of Mary Dugan, filmed in 1929 and 1941.

DUVEEN: This is Sir Joseph Joel Duveen, knighted 1904, who had a gallery of art and antiques in Bond Street.

FATH, Jacques: French designer (1912–1954)

FORTUNE, Reggie: medical detective in books by H. C. Bentley (1878–1961)

FRIETCHIE, Barbara: (1766–1862); also featured in an Ogden Nash poem which is quoted.

GARCIA: This is Spanish gambler Thomas Garcia, active in the 1860s in Monte Carlo.

GLOSSOP, Lady: No need to “assume”; TYJ ch 3 mentions that Sir Roderick has been a widower for more than two years.

GODSPODINOFF: Elia: misprint here; the correct spelling of Gospodinoff appears in Wodehouse. Robert Ripley’s Believe It or Not panel with this account appeared in newspapers May 6–7, 1930, saying it happened “many years ago.” More at the Madame Eulalie annotations, at p. 9.

GREGSON, Spenser: The cross-reference at the end should be to Percival, not Percy, Craye.

HAMMAMS: Norman Murphy identifies this (A Wodehouse Handbook) as a hotel on the southeast corner of Covent Garden, demolished in the 1930s, which stood on the site of England’s first Turkish baths (hummums or hammams). (Hammans is a misprint in Cosmo-DEC.)

HAROLD1: Duplicate entry; this is Harold Wooster, younger brother of Claude and Eustace.

HAROLD2: To quote Wodehouse more accurately, replace “virtually spherical” with “practically circular”.

HARRIGE’S: Misprinted here; Harridge’s in the originals cited.

HARROD’S: Add citation: Star-RFJ ch 3

HEROD, King: add comma after HEROD

IPPLETON, Earl of: add cross-refs to Lords Blennerhasset and Lennerhasset

IT’S ALL RELATIVE – JEEVES: the “may be only three” is substantiated in MOJ, where Jeeves says he has only three aunts.

— Under COUSIN add Queenie Silversmith, daughter of his Uncle Charlie in TMS, and add a cousin George mentioned in RHJ.

— Under UNCLES add an unnamed one who instructed him about jewelry, mentioned in JFS

JEEVES, Reginald: change 1916 to 1915 in second line (SatEvePost-EYG, 18-9/15).

JUPP, Porky: add cross-ref to Volume 7, where FQO-OFB is cited.

KLEM, Bill: William Joseph Klem (1874–1951), dean of American baseball umpires, in the major leagues 1905–41.

LAMARR, Hedy (Hedwig Kiesler, 1914–2000)

LENNERHASSET, Lord: Add cross-references to Lord Blennerhasset and Earl of Ippleton.

LE STRANGE, Bernard: (1900–1956) Friend of PGW; owned Hunstanton Hall until 1949.

LIGGETT: Delete “Richard T.” and substitute “T. Renshaw”

LITTLE, Algernon Aubrey: Add cross-ref to Volume 7 where NSE-BSB is cited.

LITTLE, Richard P. (Bingo): on p. 151 the Littles are living at the Norfolk property in VGJ-JOS (1930). But they had been living in St. John’s Wood in COJ-CRY (1925). It is just possible that the events of BlueBook-OBL and FQO-LIA, which locate the Littles at 39 Magnolia Lane, St. John’s Wood, take place before the move to Wimbledon Common as specified in EGB-SOB (1939) and other stories.

McGARRY: See also PLP-LWF, cited in Vol. 5.

McINTOSH: the West Highland breed is mentioned in Strand-JDM. Only in USVGJ-JID is it the terrier McIntosh who eats Bertie’s dropped cake; in other version of JID the cake is snaffled by Robert, a spaniel.

MANNERING-PHIPPS, Gussie: No need to “believe”; we are told in JUG that he married Ray Denison.

MEADOWES: the name adopted by the actor Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, while playing the part of valet to “Gussie Fink-Nottle” (in reality Bertie pretending to be Gussie).

MEEKYN: This is a joking annotation, referring to brown shoes rather than suntanned skin.

MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, Felix: (properly spelled thus)

MR WOOSTER IS ENGAGED: Add Heloise Pringle, COJ-WTO, under IMPOSED UPON, at least as an entanglement if not an engagement. Also, in SatEvePost-LIJ, Strand-LIJ, MMJ-LIJ, Bertie says that he “tried to marry into musical comedy”.

MOON, Gwendolyn: Also “misremembered as Elizabeth Moon by Bertie in RHJ.”

MOSENSTEIN’S: Much more likely to be a theatre than a club, I think.

MURGATROYD, Dr. Edward Jimpson: Add “Called ‘Jimpy’ by Major Plank.”

OUTCALT: A misspelling here; magazine correctly has Outcault, who is Richard F. Outcault (1863–1928), pioneering American newspaper cartoonist of The Yellow Kid as well as Buster Brown.

OWERS is Joseph Owers, British bookmaker, who played trente et quarante in Monte Carlo for at least two decades beginning in 1908 (except during the war); he broke the bank at least 39 times.

PALMER, Sir Bellamy: In PicRev-RRC (“Rallying Round Clarence,” April 1914) he is J. Bellamy Palmer of Midville, Penn.

PERCY3: the bronchial trouble was fatal; he is “the late Percy”

Add an entry for PIGGY: see Sir George Wooster.

PINKER, Harold “Stinker”: He is curate in Totleigh-in-the-Wold, not Market Snodsbury.

POMEROY: correct spelling of his new employers to Bessington-Copes

POPPET: add “Belongs to Phyllis Mills.”

POTTER-PIRBRIGHT, Cora “Corky”: As far as I can tell, the simpler version of her surname is used throughout, so this should probably be listed as PIRBRIGHT, Cora “Corky”.

POTTER-PIRBRIGHT, the Rev. Sidney: Similarly, I only find him as PIRBRIGHT, the Rev. Sidney.

PRINGLE, Jane: unless her memory is pre-natal, it must go back “nearly eighty-seven years” as she will be 87 next birthday.

QUEENIE: She is Queenie Silversmith and has another entry under that name; delete this one.

RIPLEY, Robert (1890–1949): American columnist/illustrator. See Gospodinoff above.

ROBERT: add citations to Strand-JID and Liberty-JID. In USVGJ-JID his place is taken by the terrier McIntosh.

ROMNEY, George: In PicRev-RRC, the burglary location is near Midville, Penn., and in MMJ-DCB, it is Dryden Park, Midford, Hants.

SIMMS: Another mistaken entry. Simms is not the one who contracted with Jeeves, but rather the brooding fellow visitor who raises doubts about the Duke’s identity.

SNODGRASS: This is Fred Snodgrass (1887–1974), center fielder for the New York Giants 1908–15. But the entry is mistaken; it was the umpire who called “Out!” rather than the player.

SOUTH AMERICAN JOE: title of a song, and its leading character; the 1935 popular song by Cliff Friend and Irving Caesar can be heard on YouTube. “Look out for your wife! Look out for your girl!” when slick Joe is around....

SOUTHMOLTONSHIRE: The last paragraph is regrettably misleading. The American book has at least five mentions of Southmoltonshire (one in the very first paragraph), one misspelling of Southmaltonshire (p. 167), and one of Northamptonshire (p. 21). Those two slipups don’t really add up to “using Northamptonshire as the setting.” As we learn in the Towcester Abbey entry in this volume, there is a real town of Towcester in Northamptonshire, so the obvious conclusion is that this was Wodehouse’s first choice for the setting, and one would guess that Rowcester was substituted in the British text at the same time that Northamptonshire was replaced by Southmoltonshire.

Add a cross-reference entry: STARR, Cora: See Cora Potter-Pirbright (or just Pirbright, if I had my way; see above)

STEEPLE BUMPLEIGH: Add “Moved to Essex in MOJ.”

TARTARY, GREAT CHAM OF: Tartary is an old Central Asian land, comprising Mongolia, northern China, southern Siberia. Cham is an early English attempt at transliterating Khan, as in Genghis or Kublai. Tamerlane is the historic Western name of one of the rulers traditionally given this title.

THOMPSON, Fred (1884–1949): English librettist, Wodehouse’s collaborator on The Golden Moth (1921), which was still running at the Royal Adelphi Theatre when the original magazine story appeared in early 1922.

TIDDLYWINKS: (correct the spelling by deleting the E printed in the book)

TROTTER, Mrs.: Her given name is Emily.

UNCLE: Reggie Pepper’s unnamed... In other stories his name is given as Edward Pepper (q.v.).

WARDOUR, Marion: It is probable that her character is based on Marion Davies, whose birth name was Marion Douras; she had been a Follies showgirl and got her first musical comedy role in the Wodehouse/Bolton/Kern show Oh, Boy! in 1917.

WATERSON, Wilfred: change “and” to “or” in the second line; magazine versions mention tortoise; book versions mention parrot Percy.

WATSON, Jane: Add cross-ref to Lady Bittlesham for her career following marriage.

WICKHAM, Lady: At one point in HRY (1st ed., p. 3) her name is misprinted as Lady Wickman.

WICKHAMMERSLEY, Lady Cynthia: Add “Engaged to the Rev. James Bates.”

WIDGEON, Frederick F.: His middle name is Fotheringay in YMS-FAT, YMS-NOO, and IIB; see Volume 7. Only in FQO-FOL is his middle name given as Fortescue, and that is Catsmeat speaking, not in Wodehouse’s narration, so it may just be a mistake by Catsmeat. In every story listed in this volume, he is merely Freddie, and in all but PLP-BBB, he is offstage and merely talked about or recalled. Add citations to JIM ch 8, ROJ ch 3, and cross-reference to Volume 2, where Strand-QUE is cited.

WILLARD, Jess (1881–1968): American boxer, World Heavyweight Champion 1915–19.

WINCHELL, Walter (1897–1972): American gossip columnist, also in radio and movies

WINKWORTH, Dame Daphne: I haven’t yet found any reference to her in JIO.

WINTERBOTTOM: replace “at lunchtime” with “during breakfast”; cross-ref Benjafield.

WITHERSPOON, Inspector: It should be mentioned that this is an impersonation by Jeeves.

YEARDSLEY, Matthew: Delete “Sir”; there is no reference to this in the stories.

ZULU: replace “the buff” with “a loincloth”

p. 207:

Add entry for PicRev-RRC, Rallying Round Clarence, Pictorial Review, April 1914, NONE with a cross-reference to “Doing Clarence a Bit of Good”.

 

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Compiled by Neil Midkiff; last updated 2017-12-04
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