Editing P. G. Wodehouse (section)

===Early years===
Wodehouse was born in [[Guildford]], Surrey, the third son of Henry Ernest Wodehouse (1845–1929), a magistrate resident in the British colony of Hong Kong, and his wife, Eleanor (1861–1941), daughter of the Rev [[John Bathurst Deane]]. The Wodehouses, who traced their ancestry back to the 13th century, belonged to a [[cadet branch]] of the family of the [[earls of Kimberley]]. Eleanor Wodehouse was also of ancient aristocratic ancestry.<ref>Jasen, p. 2; and Donaldson, pp. 39–40</ref> She was visiting her sister in Guildford when Wodehouse was born there prematurely.<ref name=dnbarchive>Donaldson, Frances. (1986) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/31851 "Wodehouse, Sir Pelham Grenville"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150613150331/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/31851 |date=13 June 2015 }}, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' archive, Oxford University Press, retrieved 25 April 2015 {{ODNBsub}}</ref>

[[File:St Nicholas' Church, Bury Street, Guildford (April 2014, from Northwest) (1).JPG|thumb|alt=Exterior shot of large parish church|[[St Nicolas' Church, Guildford|St Nicolas, Guildford]], where Wodehouse was christened]]
The boy was baptised at the [[Church of St Nicolas, Guildford]],<ref>[https://archive.today/20150425183533/http://www.visitsurrey.com/general-and-tourist-information/surreys-famous-people-p671171 "Surrey's Famous people"], Visit Surrey, retrieved 25 April 2015</ref> and was named after his godfather, [[P. G. von Donop|Pelham von Donop]].<ref name=letters30>Wodehouse and Ratcliffe, p. 30</ref> Wodehouse wrote in 1957, "If you ask me to tell you frankly if I like the name Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, I must confess that I do not.{{space}}... I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it but a small silver mug which I lost in 1897."<ref>Wodehouse, ''Over Seventy'', p. 46; also, slightly reworded, in author's preface to 1969 reissue of ''Something Fresh'', p. 2</ref>{{refn|P. G. von Donop's middle name was George. It is unclear why Grenville was chosen for Wodehouse. The academic Sophie Ratcliffe speculates that Eleanor Wodehouse chose it because of her liking for literary heroes. [[Richard Grenville|Sir Richard Grenville]] is the hero of [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]]'s ''[[s:The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet|The Revenge]]''; among the names Eleanor gave her other sons were Peveril from [[Walter Scott|Scott]]'s ''[[Peveril of the Peak]]'' and Lancelot from Tennyson's ''[[Idylls of the King]]''.<ref name=letters30/>|group= n}} The first name was rapidly elided to "Plum", the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends.<ref>McCrum, p. 9</ref>

Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was raised by a Chinese [[Amah (occupation)|amah]] (nurse), alongside his elder brothers Philip Peveril John (1877–1951) and Ernest Armine (1879–1936).<ref>McCrum, p. 14</ref>{{refn|A younger brother, [[Richard Wodehouse|Richard]], was born in 1892. He "hardly featured in Wodehouse's life", according to the biographer [[Robert McCrum]], living for most of his life in [[British India|India]] and then China, and making a modest reputation as an amateur cricketer.<ref>McCrum, pp. 23–24; and [http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/35987.html "Richard Wodehouse"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610224839/http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/35987.html |date=10 June 2015 }}, Cricinfo, retrieved 27 April 2015</ref>|group= n}} When he was two, the brothers were brought to England, where they were placed under the care of an English [[nanny]] in a house adjoining that of Eleanor's father and mother.<ref name=letters30/>

The boys' parents returned to Hong Kong and became virtual strangers to their sons. Such an arrangement was then normal for middle-class families based in the colonies.<ref>Donaldson, p. 43</ref> The lack of parental contact, and the harsh regime of some of those ''[[in loco parentis]]'', left permanent emotional scars on many children from similar backgrounds, including the writers [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Saki]], [[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling]] and [[Hugh Walpole|Walpole]].<ref>Donaldson, p. 43 (Kipling); Hart-Davis, p. 20 (Walpole); and Usborne, p. 43 (Thackeray and Saki)</ref> Wodehouse was more fortunate; his nanny, Emma Roper, was strict but not unkind, and both with her and later at his different schools Wodehouse had a generally happy childhood.<ref>Jasen, p. 5</ref><ref name=os16>Wodehouse, ''Over Seventy'', p. 16</ref> His recollection was that "it went like a breeze from start to finish, with everybody I met understanding me perfectly".<ref name=os16/> The biographer [[Robert McCrum]] suggests that nonetheless Wodehouse's isolation from his parents left a psychological mark, causing him to avoid emotional engagement both in life and in his works.<ref>McCrum, pp. 16–17</ref> Another biographer, [[Frances Donaldson, Baroness Donaldson of Kingsbridge|Frances Donaldson]], writes, "Deprived so early, not merely of maternal love, but of home life and even a stable background, Wodehouse consoled himself from the youngest age in an imaginary world of his own."<ref name=dnbarchive/>

In 1886 the brothers were sent to a [[dame-school]] in [[Croydon]], where they spent three years.  Peveril was then found to have a "weak chest";<ref>Wodehouse, ''quoted'' in Jasen, p. 8</ref> sea air was prescribed, and the three boys were moved to [[Elizabeth College, Guernsey|Elizabeth College]] on the island of [[Guernsey]]. In 1891 Wodehouse went on to [[Malvern House Preparatory School]] in Kent, which concentrated on preparing its pupils for entry to the [[Royal Navy]]. His father had planned a naval career for him, but the boy's eyesight was found to be too poor for it. He was unimpressed by the school's narrow curriculum and zealous discipline; he later parodied it in his novels, with [[Bertie Wooster]] recalling his early years as a pupil at a "penitentiary{{space}}... with the outward guise of a prep school" called Malvern House.<ref>Jaggard (1967), p. 104</ref>

Cheney Court, [[Ditteridge]], a large 17th-century house near [[Box, Wiltshire|Box]] in Wiltshire,<ref>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1285230|desc=Cheyney Court|access-date=31 January 2022}}</ref> was one of Wodehouse's homes while his parents were living in Hong Kong. His grandmother died in 1892, after which he was largely brought up by his aunts, including the writer [[Mary Bathurst Deane]],<ref>Easdale, Roderick (2014). ''The Novel Life of P. G. Wodehouse'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=ohe_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT40 p. 40]</ref>
the original of Bertie Wooster's fictional [[Aunt Agatha]].<ref>[http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/mary-deane-review.html "Box People and Places: The Shadow of Mary Deane"], boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk, accessed 9 March 2024</ref><ref>Kemp, Sandra, ed. (1997) ''Edwardian Fiction: An Oxford Companion'' (Oxford University Press), p. 92</ref> In 1955 Wodehouse wrote "Aunt Agatha is definitely my Aunt Mary, who was the scourge of my childhood."<ref>Murphy, p. 21</ref>

Throughout their school years the brothers were sent to stay during the holidays with various uncles and aunts from both sides of the family. In the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', [[Iain Sproat]] counts twenty aunts and considers that they played an important part not only in Wodehouse's early life, but, thinly disguised, in his mature novels, as the formidable aunts who dominate the action in the Wooster, [[Blandings Castle|Blandings]], and other stories. The boys had fifteen uncles, four of whom were clergymen. Sproat writes that they inspired Wodehouse's "pious but fallible curates, vicars, and bishops, of which he wrote with friendly irreverence but without mockery".<ref name=dnb>Sproat, Iain. (2010) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31851 "Wodehouse, Sir Pelham Grenville (1881–1975)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 24 April 2015 {{ODNBsub}}</ref>

{{Quote box|width=40%|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=left| quote= He has the most distorted ideas about wit and humour; he draws over his books and examination papers in the most distressing way and writes foolish rhymes in other people's books. Notwithstanding he has a genuine interest in literature and can often talk with enthusiasm and good sense about it.|salign = right|source= — Dulwich College report on Wodehouse, 1899.<ref>Donaldson, p. 52</ref>}}

At the age of twelve in 1894, to his great joy, Wodehouse was able to follow his brother Armine to [[Dulwich College]].<ref>McCrum, p. 24</ref> He was entirely at home there; Donaldson comments that Dulwich gave him, for the first time, "some continuity and a stable and ordered life". He loved the camaraderie, distinguished himself at cricket, [[Rugby union|rugby]] and boxing, and was a good, if not consistently diligent, student.<ref>Jasen, p. 17</ref> The headmaster at the time was [[Arthur Herman Gilkes|A. H. Gilkes]], a respected [[classicist]], who was a strong influence on Wodehouse.<ref name=dnbarchive/> In a study of Wodehouse's works, [[Richard Usborne]] argues that "only a writer who was himself a scholar and had had his face ground into Latin and Greek (especially [[Thucydides]]) as a boy" could sustain the complex sequences of [[subordinate clauses]] sometimes found in Wodehouse's comic prose.<ref name=u26>Usborne, p. 26</ref>{{refn|Usborne cites as an example a sentence from ''[[Money in the Bank (novel)|Money in the Bank]]'' (1942): "With the feeling, which was his constant companion nowadays, for the wedding was fixed for the fifth of July and it was already the tenth of June, that if anybody cared to describe him as some wild thing taken in a trap, which sees the trapper coming through the woods, it would be all right with him, he threw a moody banana skin at the loudest of the sparrows, and went back into the room."<ref name=u26/>|group= n}}

Wodehouse's six years at Dulwich were among the happiest of his life: "To me the years between 1894 and 1900 were like heaven."<ref>Wodehouse, ''Performing Flea'', Letter of 7 March 1946, p. 135</ref> In addition to his sporting achievements he was a good singer and enjoyed taking part in school concerts; his literary leanings found an outlet in editing the school magazine, ''The Alleynian''.<ref>Jasen, p. 18</ref> For the rest of his life he remained devoted to the school. The biographer Barry Phelps writes that Wodehouse "loved the college as much as he loved anything or anybody".<ref>Phelps, p. 63</ref>