The Brilliant Hackwork of P.G. Wodehouse

The image of Wodehouse as some sort of manic literary beaver is one of the singular pleasures of reading his work. His professional career began in 1902 with the publication of his first novel and ended with the release of his 70th in 1974, less than a year before he died. The man fit in 25 years of full-time work before the first talkie hit theaters, back when the dominant media for comedy were stage shows and print. In the 21st century, prose humor is a kind of charity division whose entrants fall into two categories: gift books by people who have been funny on television and novels that say “uproariously funny” on the jacket even though they are not funny at all.