Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsStories and articles from Vanity Fair (US)
Editor’s Note: This project has been some time in the making. First of all,
thanks go to Terry Mordue and Charles Stone-Tolcher, for sending PDF copies of the scans that they
had, for transcription. Charles, along with Parthasarathy Uppilisrinivasan, also helped in
transcribing several of the stories. Thanks also go to Raja Srinivasan, who had already put out
many of the articles on the previous MadamEulalie site, and who had also put out many more as text files
on the old Freeservers site; and last but not least, to Ian Michaud, for patiently proofreading each and
every article or story. He also supplied the originals for the last few articles that we did not have.
Many of the dramatic criticism articles have photos of actors/actresses in the original magazine version,
but in most cases the scans have rendered the pictures so bad that it is pointless to include them
(mere black smudges is all). Hopefully someday better scans will be forthcoming. [2012]
Better scans are now available, and a second round of proofing and updating has been done, including a few ✎ annotations and four items new to this site marked ☆. [2014–15]
We can now include Wodehouse’s last signed contribution to the magazine in January 1923. [2019]
✎ The Physical Culture Peril — May 1914
The Literature of the Future — June 1914
✎ The Knuts o’ London — September 1914
☆ Wodehouse’s salute to the magazine on its first anniversary [image] — September 1914
The English Country House — October 1914
The Noble Art of Falconry — October 1914
Stirring Scenes in War Stricken London — November 1914
✎ The Pleasures of Duelling in Germany — December 1914
Thoughts on Home Life — December 1914
Commuting at the Theatre (drama criticism) — January 1915
✎ The Charms of Country Life — January 1915
Entertaining for the Young — February 1915
The Country Servant Problem — February 1915
Boy! Page Mr. Comstock! (drama criticism) — March 1915
Scooterin’: Half Sailing, Half Ice-Boating — March 1915
Take Your Choice of Musical Comedies (drama criticism) — April 1915
All About the Pastime of Divorce — May 1915
Aubrey’s Arrested Individuality (story) — May 1915
Bad Times for Theatregoers (drama criticism) — May 1915
Home Life in the War Zone (drama criticism) — May 1915
✎ The Disappearance of Podmarsh (story) — June 1915
The Secret Pleasures of Reginald (story) — June 1915
What Really Happened to Hamlet — June 1915
Some Thoughts on Mr. Oppenheim — July 1915
The Military Invasion of America - Part 1 (story) — July 1915
The Military Invasion of America - Part 2 (story) — August 1915
✎ Cabarabian Nights — August 1915
The Eighteenth Hole (story) — August 1915
The Expulsion from Eden — August 1915
The So-Called Pleasures of Coney Island — August 1915
✎ Summer Stuff (drama criticism) — September 1915
✎ A School for Movie Villains (film criticism) — October 1915
“Perfectly Furious” (story) — October 1915
The Europe Weekly Gazette — October 1915
The First Batch of Autumn Productions (drama criticism) — October 1915
✎ A Visit to the R. W. Chambers Fiction Plant — November 1915
✎ The Drama, and Trouble in the Home (drama criticism) — November 1915
The Habit of Picking on New York — November 1915
The Scourge of the Golf Child — November 1915
✎ Christmas Presents — December 1915
✎ My Battle with Drink — December 1915
✎ Some Women and a Little Music (drama criticism) — December 1915
✎ That Viennese Stuff (drama criticism) — December 1915
All About Fashionable Weddings — January 1916
✎ Cruelty to Millionaires (opera criticism) — January 1916
In Defense of Astigmatism — January 1916
Shattering the Conventions (drama criticism) — January 1916
The “Great White Way” Fraud — January 1916
All About Butlers — February 1916
Some Theatrical Mysteries (drama criticism) — February 1916
The New Disease—Dementia Warstocks (story) — February 1916
A Review of Revues (drama criticism) — March 1916
On Being Photographed — March 1916
Recent Stage Marriages (drama criticism) — March 1916
The Making of Musical Comedies — March 1916
All About Shakespeare — April 1916
The Leisurely Drama (drama criticism) — April 1916
The New Musical Shows (drama criticism) — April 1916
Watchman, What of the Night? — April 1916
Another Proposed Union (drama criticism) — May 1916
Diary of a War-Time Honeymoon (story) — May 1916
How to Break into Society (dramatic dialogue) — May 1916
The Coming of Spring — May 1916
Tough Times for Critics (drama criticism) — May 1916
A New Figure in Musical Comedy (drama criticism) — June 1916
A Timely Chat about Gardens — June 1916
Drama, Melodrama and Tragedy (drama criticism) — June 1916
✎ The Alarming Spread of Poetry — June 1916
A Priceless Boon for Authors (story) — July 1916
The Passing of the Dramatic Fixer (drama criticism) — July 1916
Where to Spend the Summer — July 1916
Concerning the Virtues and Vices of Artists — August 1916
The Somber Sadness of Our Summer Shows (drama criticism) — August 1916
The Three-in-One Presidential Candidate — August 1916
A Little Chat About a Favorite Summer Sport — September 1916
✎ All About Me — September 1916
The Proposed Authors’ Union — September 1916
A Great Coming Tennis Match — October 1916
The Summer Drama (drama criticism) — October 1916
✎ Gladness Under Difficulties (drama criticism) — November 1916
On Reducing the Embonpoint — December 1916
Our Slack and Slothful Playwrights (drama criticism) — December 1916
Three New Musical Comedies (drama criticism) — December 1916
A Visit to Mr. Hearst’s Health Farm — January 1917
All About New Year’s Day — January 1917
✎ The New Plays of the Old Year (drama criticism) — January 1917
✎ Two Spectacular Musical Reviews (drama criticism) — January 1917
An Appreciation of Vaudeville — February 1917
Probably the Beginning of an Epidemic (drama criticism) — February 1917
The Agonies of Writing a Musical Comedy (drama criticism) — March 1917
The Marvels and the Mysteries of the Telephone — April 1917
The Past Theatrical Season (drama criticism) — May 1917
On Certain Phases of the Drama (drama criticism) — June 1917
On the Writing of Lyrics (drama criticism) — June 1917
The New Plays (1917) (drama criticism) — July 1917
The Good Old Summertime (drama criticism) — August 1917
The Coming Theatrical Season (drama criticism) — September 1917
A Cloud-burst on the Rialto (drama criticism) — October 1917
Dishing Up Fiction in Play Form (drama criticism) — November 1917
Fred Stone and a Few Others (drama criticism) — December 1917
Writing the Show at the Century (drama criticism) — December 1917
The Poor Old Drama (drama criticism) — January 1918
The Theatrical Slump (drama criticism) — February 1918
The Trials of a Hard Winter (drama criticism) — February 1918
The Barrymores, and Others (drama criticism) — April 1918
☆ A Succession of Musical Comedies (review by Dorothy Parker of Oh, Lady! Lady!!) — April 1918
The New Plays (1918) (drama criticism) — May 1918
A Plea for Indoor Golf — May 1919
All About the Income-Tax — May 1919
The Super-Novelists — June 1919
The Pleasures of Saturday Golf — July 1919
Prohibition and the Drama (drama criticism) — August 1919
Golf: The Last Phase — September 1919
☆ For One Night Only (verse) — October 1919
☆ Prolific Playwrights [PDF page image with photos of Wodehouse and Bolton] — October 1919
Keeping Up With Terpsichore — October 1919
Reviewing a Theatre Audience (drama criticism) — November 1919
The Nation’s Songs — December 1919
Hansford Wilson: Master of Comedy (drama criticism) — April 1920
The New Plays—Along Broadway (drama criticism) — April 1920
The New Plays (1920) (drama criticism) — May 1920
Who Is William Shakespeare? (drama criticism) — May 1920
The Season-End Productions (drama criticism) — June 1920
The Theatrical Year (drama criticism) — June 1920
Drawbacks of the Drama in England (drama criticism) — December 1922
✎ Should Ocean Liners Be Abolished — January 1923
Vanity Fair (US)
Vanity Fair was an American society magazine published from 1913 to 1936. It was highly successful until the Great Depression led to it becoming unprofitable, and it was merged into Vogue magazine in 1936. (from Wikipedia)
Wodehouse published well over 100 items in Vanity Fair (US), from 1914 through 1923, sometimes having five contributions in a single issue. To disguise this, he wrote under his own name and several aliases, including P. Brooke-Haven, J. Plum, C. P. West, J. Walker Williams, Melrose Granger, and Pelham Grenville. He was acting as the primary dramatic critic for the magazine, and many of the articles reflect that.
In a May 1914 column about the new magazine’s editorial policy, Wodehouse was listed among the “kindly, restrained, scholarly” humorists contributing to the magazine, and was cited as having been “accused of trying to Americanize Punch.”
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