Editing P. G. Wodehouse (section)

===Psmith, Blandings, Wooster and Jeeves: 1908–1915===
[[File:Psmith-1909.jpg|thumb|alt=drawing of tall, slim young man of assured bearing, smartly dressed|upright=0.5|[[Psmith]], drawn by T. M. R. Whitwell for first edition of ''[[Mike (novel)|Mike]]'' (1909)]]
Wodehouse's early period as a writer came to an end in 1908 with the serialisation of ''The Lost Lambs'', published the following year in book form as the second half of the novel ''Mike''.<ref name=m83/> The work begins as a conventional school story, but Wodehouse introduces a new and strikingly original character, [[Psmith]],<ref>French, p. 38</ref> whose creation both [[Evelyn Waugh]] and [[George Orwell]] regarded as a watershed in Wodehouse's development.<ref name=m83>McCrum, p. 83</ref> Wodehouse said that he based Psmith on the hotelier and impresario [[Rupert D'Oyly Carte]]—"the only thing in my literary career which was handed to me on a silver plate with watercress around it".<ref name=psmith/> Wodehouse wrote in the 1970s that a cousin of his who had been at school with Carte told him of the latter's monocle, studied suavity, and stateliness of speech, all of which Wodehouse adopted for his new character.<ref name=psmith>Wodehouse, ''The World of Psmith'', p. v</ref>{{refn|In the opinion of Carte's daughter, [[Bridget D'Oyly Carte|Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte]], the schoolboy described to Wodehouse was not her father, who was shy and taciturn, but his more outgoing elder brother Lucas.<ref>Donaldson, p. 85</ref>|group= n}} Psmith featured in three more novels: ''[[Psmith in the City]]'' (1910), a burlesque of banking; ''[[Psmith, Journalist]]'' (1915) set in New York; and ''[[Leave It to Psmith]]'' (1923), set at Blandings Castle.<ref>Usborne, p. 237</ref>

In May 1909 Wodehouse made his second visit to New York, where he sold two short stories to ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]'' and ''[[Collier's]]'' for a total of $500, a much higher fee than he had commanded previously.<ref>Jasen, pp. 44–45</ref> He resigned from ''The Globe'' and stayed in New York for nearly a year. He sold many more stories, but none of the American publications offered a permanent relationship and guaranteed income.<ref name=j45/> Wodehouse returned to England in late 1910, rejoining ''The Globe'' and also contributing regularly to ''[[The Strand Magazine]]''. Between then and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he revisited America frequently.<ref>Donaldson, p. 92</ref>

Wodehouse was in New York when the war began. Ineligible for military service because of his poor eyesight, he remained in the US throughout the war, detached from the conflict in Europe and absorbed in his theatrical and literary concerns.<ref name=dnbarchive/> In September 1914 he married Ethel May Wayman, ''née'' Newton (1885–1984), an English widow. The marriage proved happy and lifelong. Ethel's personality was in contrast with her husband's: he was shy and impractical; she was gregarious, decisive and well organised. In Sproat's phrase, she "took charge of Wodehouse's life and made certain that he had the peace and quiet he needed to write".<ref name=dnb/> There were no children of the marriage, but Wodehouse came to love Ethel's daughter Leonora (1905–1944) and legally adopted her.<ref>Jasen, p. 56</ref>{{refn|Leonora took Wodehouse's surname until she married [[Peter Cazalet (racehorse trainer)|Peter Cazalet]] in 1932.<ref>McCrum, p. 213</ref>|group= n}}

[[File:P.G. Wodehouse - My Man Jeeves - 1st American edition (1920 printing) - Crop.jpg|thumb|alt=Book jacket with drawing of bust of middle-aged man in formal clothes, in the foreground, with a lively city street scene behind him|upright=0.7|left|''[[My Man Jeeves]]'', 1920 edition]]
Wodehouse experimented with different genres of fiction in these years; ''Psmith, Journalist'', mixing comedy with social comment on slum landlords and racketeers, was published in 1915.<ref>McCrum, p. 91</ref> In the same year ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' paid $3,500 to serialise ''[[Something Fresh|Something New]]'', the first of what became a series of novels set at Blandings Castle.<ref>Wodehouse and Ratcliffe, p. 94</ref> It was published in hardback in the US and the UK in the same year (the British edition being retitled ''Something Fresh'').<ref name=m504>McCrum, p. 504</ref> It was Wodehouse's first [[farce|farcical]] novel; it was also his first best-seller, and although his later books included some gentler, lightly sentimental stories, it was as a farceur that he became known.<ref>Usborne, p. 17</ref> Later in the same year "Extricating Young Gussie", the first story about Bertie and [[Jeeves]], was published.{{refn|In this story Bertie's surname is evidently not Wooster but Mannering-Phipps, and Jeeves is not yet the omniscient ''[[deus ex machina]]'' he was soon to become in subsequent stories.<ref>Usborne, p. 103; and Wodehouse, P. G. [http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7471/pg7471.html "Extricating Young Gussie"], ''The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories'' (1917), Project Gutenberg, retrieved 28 April 2015</ref>|group= n}} These stories introduced two sets of characters about whom Wodehouse wrote for the rest of his life. The Blandings Castle stories, set in an English stately home, depict the attempts of the placid [[Lord Emsworth]] to evade the many distractions around him, which include successive pairs of young lovers, the machinations of his exuberant brother [[Galahad Threepwood|Galahad]], the demands of his domineering sisters and super-efficient secretaries, and anything detrimental to his prize sow, the [[Empress of Blandings]].<ref>Usborne, pp. 117–118</ref> The Bertie and Jeeves stories feature an amiable young man-about-town, regularly rescued from the consequences of his idiocy by the benign interference of his valet.<ref>Usborne, pp. 173–175</ref>