What Ho! P. G. Wodehouse on Money

'[I'm] as broke as the ten commandments.' P. G. 'Plum' Wodehouse knew a thing or two about the money-go-round; in 1938 he was the world's highest paid writer. At times, his financial affairs read like one of his own comic plots, as British and American tax inspectors chased him from pillar to post across two continents. Many of his characters are similarly afflicted: but whether they have too much or too little splosh in the old sock, they always seem to learn - in the funniest ways possible - that money is an excellent servant and a terrible master. The fifth of Paul Kent's occasional essays on matters Wodehousean is packed with paupers and plutocrats, meritocrats and misers all mooching with Mammon. It most certainly is funny in this rich man's world!

Paul Kent is the Vice-Chairman of the P G Wodehouse Society (UK), and has been a fan of the great man for longer than he cares to remember. Between 2019 and 2022, he published a trilogy of books that offers a comprehensive tour of Wodehouse's creative imagination - 'This is jolly old Fame', 'Mid-Season Form' and 'The Happiness of the World' - which seeks to prove that Plum was not just a great comic writer, but a great writer, period. Books 4 and 5 of the trilogy - respectively 'Plum's Literary Heroes' and 'Plum at the Theatre' - are currently in preparation; and the first ten occasional essays entitled What Ho! are available now: they are Wodehouse on Food, Sport, Love, Money, Class, Cats, Dogs, Hollywood, Fashion, Childhood, and Faith.