Best remembered for his novels and short stories featuring Blandings Castle settings and the their Jeeves character, this early 20th-century British author and humorist also wrote over a dozen plays and worked as a musical theater lyricist.
Difficult financial times put a halt to his educational plans, and he spent his early adulthood years working at a London branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and simultaneously writing for a newspaper called The Globe.
He penned the screenplay for the 1937 George Burns, Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, and Gracie Allen picture A Damsel in Distress.
He was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, to Eleanor and Henry Ernest Wodehouse. In 1914, he married Ethel Wayman.
He penned the lyrics for the song "Bill" in composer Jerome Kern's popular musical, Showboat.