isfjmel-phleg:furtho:Dedication in PG Wodehouse’s autobiography, 1957This was not the actual dedicat
isfjmel-phleg:furtho:Dedication in PG Wodehouse’s autobiography, 1957This was not the actual dedication of the book. The full context for it is in the preface to Over Seventy:[…] Nofootnotes, then, in this book of mine, and I think on the whole no Dedication.Nobody seems to be doing these now, and it just shows how things have changedsince the days when I was starting out to give a shot in the arm to EnglishLiterature. At the turn of the century the Dedication was the thing on which weauthors all spread ourselves. It was the bonne bouche and the sine qua non.We went infor variety in those days. When you opened a novel, you never knew what youwere going to get. It might be the curt, take-it-or-leave-it dedication:To J. Smithand thesomewhat warmer:To Myfriend Percy Brownone ofthose cryptic things with a bit of poetry in italics:To F.B.O.Stark windsAnd sunset over the moorsWhy?Whither?Whence?And the roll of distant drumsor possiblythe nasty dedication, intended to sting:To J. Alastair Frisby WhoTold Me I Would Never Have A Book Published And Advised me To Get a job selling jellied eelsSUCKS TO YOU, FRISBYIt was allgreat fun and kept our pores open and our blood circulating, but it is notdifficult to see why the custom died out. Inevitably a time came when therecrept into authors’ minds the question, ‘What is there in this for me?’ I knowit was so in my own case. ‘What is Wodehouse getting out of this?’ I askedmyself, and the answer, as far as I could see, was, 'Not a thing.’ When theeighteenth-century author inserted on page I something likeToThe MostNoble and Puissant Lord Knubble of Knopp This bookis dedicated By His very Humble Servant, the AuthorMy Lord,It is withinexpressible admiration for your lordship’s transcendent gifts, that the poorslob who now addresses your lordship presents to your lordship this triflingwork, so unworthy of your lordships distinguished consideration,he expectedto do himself a bit of good. Lord Knubble was his patron and could be reliedon, unless having one of his attacks of gout, to come through with at least acouple of guineas. But where does a modern author like myself get off? I pluck- let us say - P. B. Biffen from the ranks of the unsung millions and make himimmortal, and what docs Biffen do in return? He does nothing. He just standsthere. I probably won’t get so much as a lunch out of it.So no Dedication and,as I say, none of those obscene little fly-specks scattered about all over thepage.(19) 19Footnotes.Some context/clarification for that famous and vaguely viral (in my neck of the woods) Wodehouse “dedication.” Somehow the full picture is even more delightful than the misleading nugget. -- source link