Blandings: Wodehouse Site

Can You Help?

This site covers a big subject. I'm doing my best but there's a limit to what one chap can do. There are gaps in some of the published sections and ideas I can't follow up. Please take a look at the list below and if you can help, e-mail Reggie. I believe in giving credit where it's due so acknowledgements will be given on the site - unless you prefer to remain anonymous.

What do you want?

why

The aims of this site are: to provide additional information to readers to help them get more out of the books (this is aimed particularly at younger and non-British readers); to encourage people to read more Wodehouse, including his lesser known works; and to assist enthusiasts to make sense out of the many titles and avoid expensive errors.

Quotations etc.

'The Boys of Dormitory Two' (The name of a book or magazine story?)

'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of thee.' (Not Shakespeare as attributed, so who?)

'Like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.' (and similar) (Is this a quote and if so, who by and in what? I know about Wordsworth's 'Prelude'.)

'The Montresors of the Grange' (a book or story?) and/or 'the arched Montresor nose'.

'Little Willie, the Apt Pupil' (a cartoon character?)

'Consul, the Almost-Human' (other than chimpanzees on the stage [really] and before the 1900's.)

'Sailors Don't Care' (a song, not the arrangement by Emile Grimshaw although he seems to have written the tune.)

'... there is no heaviness in the soul which will not vanish beneath the influence of a quiet smoke' (not Calverley)

'In the silent watches of the night' (before 1781 when it appears in a poem by William Cowper)

'... we have set our hands to the plough, and we cannot sheathe the sword ...' (Is this from a hymn?)

'Where sin stalks naked through the dark alleys and only might is right.'

Ralph Vandeleur (probably an actor)

Chop straws. (Used to mean to split hairs or argue over small differences, but where does it come from?)

Mottled Oyster. (Why is it special compared to other oysters?)

Locust-stick (as carried by policemen).

'Oh, cruel, cruel espionage.' (from a melodrama)

'There can be no true love where there is not perfect trust.' and 'Where there is perfect love there should be perfect trust'

Beasel or Beazel. (As applied to Madeline Bassett, for example, so probably not a kind of flapper or 'hard' woman. Where does this come from?)

A nice bit of box fruit. (Indicating something unwanted, a big problem.)

The hour will produce the man (or similar). (Much used but where does it come from - 'Cometh the hour, cometh the man'?)

'the Price of the Papers'. (Is it a book or story or what? And if so, who wrote it?)

'Bursting with my meat (salt)' (Also used by Kipling, is this a quote from someone else?)

'My brother Dan is an alderman with a grip on the Seventh Ward.' (Another version has 'Levent' for 'Seventh'.)

Assiduous Willie. (The capital letters suggest a character, possibly from a cartoon in the 1910's.)

'... a specimen of the dressy men you meet up west.' plus a reference which makes it clear it's from a song, 1900-1964, probably 10s to 30s.

'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way' (Presented as a quote by Madeline Bassett, not just her usual loopiness, but where does it come from? Must be before 1934.)

'Glue' as a slang word for money, possibly US origin. (Origin please. Not 'glue money' which has a specific meaning and is clearly not what PG was using.)

'Good man taking his rest.' (Is this a quote? It looks like an epitaph or something said at funerals etc.)

'There's a light in thy bow-er.' (A line from a song. I have a close match from 'Coronach' in a college literary magazine from 1828 but that seems too obscure.)

'Although poor popper thinks it's improper' in a song about Granny dancing the shimmy, prior to 1919.

'My love is like a glowing tulip that in an old-world garden grows' (A song, not the piano piece by Poldini.)

'... die for one little rose from your (her) hair.' (Looks like a song.)

'... one more grave among the hills.' (Earlier than Stephen Leacock in 1920. Looks like war poetry to me.); and

'We're drifting apart. You're breaking my heart. Like I knew from the start it would be.' (I know it's a song and probably from the 20's but who wrote it and for what show?)

Omnibus editions

collections

Photos

Miscellaneous

An 'official' plan (i.e. one published by the club) of the Sound View Golf Course in Great Neck, Long Island, N. Y., now long gone.

Text of PG's plays or libretti, or sources for them - please note that my budget is limited.

All help received with thanks - Reggie.