Dedication TO PETER SCHWED (Of the firm of Simon and Schuster) DEAR PETE, I have rather gone off dedications these last forty years or so. To hell with them about sums up my attitude. Today, when I write a book, it's just a book, with no trimmings. It was not always so. Back at the turn of the century I and the rest of the boys would as soon have gone out without our spats as allowed a novel of ours to go out practically naked, as you might say. The dedication was the thing on which we spread ourselves. I once planned a book which was to consist entirely of dedications, but abandoned the idea because I could not think of a dedication for it. We went in for variety in those days. When you opened a novel, you never knew what you were going to get. It might be the curt take-it-or-leave-it dedication: TO J. SMITH the somewhat warmer To My Friend PERCY BROWN or one of those cryptic dedications with a bit of poetry shoved in underneath in italics, like

TO F.B.O. Stark winds And sunset over the moors. Why? Whither? Whence? And the sound of distant drums...

J. FRED MUGGS Lower-Smattering-on-the-Wissel, 1912. or possibly, if we were feeling a bit livery, the nasty dedication: TO THE CRITICS THESE PEARLS It was all great fun and kept our pores open and brought the roses to our cheeks, but most authors have given it up. Inevitably a time came when there crept into their minds the question "What is there in this for me?" I know it was so in my case. "What is Wodehouse getting out of this?" I asked myself, and the answer, as far as I could see, was, "Not a ruddy thing." When the eighteenth-century writer inserted on Page One something like

To THE MOST NOBLE AND PUISSANT LORD KNUBBLE OF KNOPP From HIS VERY HUMBLE SERVANT THE AUTHOR My Lord. It is with inexpressible admiration for your lordship's transcendent gifts that the poor slob who now addresses your lordship presents to your lordship this trifling work, so unworthy of your lordship's distinguished consideration

he expected to clean up. Lord Knubble was his patron and could be relied on, if given the old oil in liberal doses, to come through with at least a couple of guineas. But where does the modern author get off? He plucks—let us say—P. B. Bitten from the unsung millions and makes him immortal, and what does Biffen do in return? He does nothing. He just stands there. If he is like all the Biffens I know, the author won't get so much as a lunch out of it. Nevertheless, partly because I know I shall get a very good lunch out of you but principally because you told Jack Goodman that you thought Bertie Wooster Sees It Through was better than War and Peace I inscribe this book

TO PETER SCHWED TO MY FRIEND PETER SCHWED TO P.S. Half a league Half a league Half a league Onward With a hey-nonny-nonny And a hot cha-cha

P. G. WODEHOUSE Colney Hatch, 1954