P.G. Wodehouse, comic novelist extraordinaire, once wrote: “I find in this evening of my life that my principal pleasure is writing stinkers to people who attack me in the press.” The letter below is a prime example of the writer’s dark sense of justice. He responds to an unflattering review from Nancy Spain, a prominent journalist of the time, with not a little vitriol. Wodehouse later boasted about this very letter, writing “I sent Nancy Spain of the Daily Express a beauty. No answer, so I suppose it killed her.”
To Nancy Spain
1000 Park Avenue
New York
December 12. 1953
My poor old girl.
You certainly made a pretty bloody fool of yourself over Performing Flea, didn’t you? You should have waited to see what the other fellows were going to say.
I’ll give you a tip which will be useful to you. Always read at least some of a book before you review it. It makes a tremendous difference, and you can always find someone to help you with the difficult words.
What the devil was all that bilge about me being ‘bewildered’? There was certainly no suggestion of it in the book. You really must read it some time.
P.G. Wodehouse
From P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters. Edited by Sophie Ratcliffe. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2011. Pg. 464.
FURTHER READING
Arul Mani offers a nice personal essay on Wodehouse’s enduring relevance over at Caravan.
Robert McCrum of The Guardian ranks his favorite Wodehouse novels here.