Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth, is of course the dithering, sister-ridden, pig-obsessed peer who features in the Blandings Castle novels and short stories. His first substantial appearance was in Something Fresh (1915) and he went on to feature in books such as Heavy Weather (1933), Full Moon (1947) and Pigs have Wings (1952). Lord Emsworth and Others was a collection of short stories from 1936.Unlike most other Wodehouse proper names, which often tended toward the onomatopoeic and parodic – Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Honoria Glossop – Lord Emsworth had a concrete starting-point[1]. He was named after Emsworth, a village in Hampshire, and more specifically after a prep school in the town, Emsworth House, where PG Wodehouse stayed as a guest on and off from 1903. Wodehouse liked Emsworth so much that in 1910 he bought a house in the village called ‘Threepwood’. Wodehouse aficionados will recognize the name Threepwood: it is Lord Emsworth’s family name (and that of Galahad, his brother, and Freddie, his son). Emsworth House thus supplied the dynastic title, and Threepwood, Wodehouse’s more modest accommodation, the humbler family name. Wodehouse was nothing if not alive to the existence of class distinctions.
Consulted:
Donaldson, Frances: PG Wodehouse (Futura, 1982)
Usborne, Richard: Wodehouse at Work to the End (Penguin, 1976)
[1] One important exception is Jeeves – see post no. 30.
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