Beschreibung:

WODEHOUSE, Sir Pelham Grenville -- A SERIES OF 10 AUTOGRAPH AND 64 TYPED LETTERS, ALL UNPUBLISHED, SIGNED "P.G. WODEHOUSE," "P.G.," AND "PLUM, TO "BILLY" GRIFFITH, from various addresses in England, France and the United States, 27 September 1932-20 December 1974, together 75 letters, 97 pages in total, most closely typed; with, in addition, a signed photograph of Wodehouse and his foxhound, Bill (5 x 3in; 12.5 x 6.6cm), framed and glazed. The basis of the friendship between P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) and "Billy" Griffith (1914-1993) was that both attended Dulwich school and loved games. Wodehouse was twelve when he joined the school on 2 May 1894. He stayed for six years, and in the final two, 1899 to 1900, was selected for the first teams in both rugby and cricket, making a reputation as "a fast right-hand bowler with a good swing," a "much improved" batsman, and "wonderfully improved" fielder "though rather hampered by his sight" (see Jasen P.G. Wodehouse, 1981, p. 16). Griffith joined the prep school in 1922 and remained at Dulwich until going up to Cambridge in 1933. He was in the eleven for four years, keeping wicket in the last two and scoring over 1000 runs. Like "P.G.," he was also in the first team for rugby, and as Usborne notes led the team through a season without defeat. The earliest letters in this archive were written to him as a Dulwich schoolboy. Although the first of Wodehouse's letters does not survive, Usborne records that it was written before the two had actually met, and concerned a tense rugby match in which Griffith was playing. Wodehouse was so anxious to see Dulwich win the game that he had been unable to watch it to the end ( Wodehouse at Work, 1961, p. 40). At Pembroke College, Cambridge, Griffith won a cricket blue and soon afterwards toured Australia and New Zealand with an M.C.C. side. He played one game for Surrey in 1934, and in 1937 joined Sussex, playing 122 matches for his county up to 1954. For two years before the war, he taught at his old school, and then served with distinction in the Glider Pilot Regiment. After the war, Griffith immediately returned to cricket. He captained Sussex in 1946, and was secretary to the club from 1946 to 1950. To Wodehouse's delight, he kept wicket in the five "Victory" Tests against Australia in 1945, but to his astonishment was not picked for the tour to Australia that followed. He became cricket correspondent of the Sunday Times for two years before being appointed assistant secretary of M.C.C. in 1952. In 1962 he succeeded Ronald Aird as secretary, eventually retiring in 1974, but then becoming President in 1979-80. He had two children, Pauline and Mike, both of whom were godchildren to the author. Quintessentially English as Wodehouse is, controversy over his German broadcasts and income tax liabilities meant that he would never return to England or be able to watch another Dulwich match after the war. Instead, he enjoyed cricket vicariously by writing to "Billy," and once Griffith retired as a player he was able to follow the budding career of his son, Mike, who also played for Cambridge 1963-65 and for Sussex from 1962-74. If not complete, the correspondence is a remarkably full one. Although other early letters, besides the first, may have gone astray, the only obvious hiatus is between late 1947 and the spring of 1952 -- the least happy period of Wodehouse's adult life (hence there is no mention of Griffith's maiden Test century in the West Indies, or his replacement of Godfrey Evans for two Tests against South Africa 1948-49). While Griffith was politely prepared to talk to Usborne about the letter which began their friendship, he was reluctant to go further. Usborne's persistence may have enabled him to learn more about the correspondence but, even if he did, Wodehouse would not permit any other details to appear in the Usborne book. Subsequent biographers have mentioned the existence of this sporting friendship without knowing a great deal a