The quarterly journal of The Wodehouse Society Volume 35 Number 3 Autumn 2014 P. G. Wodehouse Conquers Sweden by Bengt Malmberg n 1964, in a letter to Georg Svensson, chief editor of Ithe publishing house Bonniers, Wodehouse wrote: I am glad of this opportunity to tell you how grateful I am to you for all the trouble you have taken to put me over with the Swedish public. I am so intensely spiritual that money means nothing to me, but I must confess that the cheques that Mr. Watt sends me for my Swedish sales do give me a gentle thrill. Whenever a book of mine is going what my publisher calls “slowly” in the USA, I cheer up because I know that everything is going to be all right in Sweden, thanks to you. In 2012 we celebrated 100 years of Wodehouse in the Swedish language. In October 1912 the weekly magazine Allers Familj-Journal published “Ruth in Exile” as “Ruth i landsflykt” only three months after the original had been published in Strand (July 1912). It Bengt Malmberg, one of many Swedish fans of P. G. Wodehouse was possibly the first translated Wodehouse story in the world. A century later it was republished in the Swedish magazines. Sweden has continued to be at the forefront Wodehouse Society’s yearbook Jeeves 2012. In January of translation of Wodehouse, with the Swedish 1913 the daily newspaper Nerikes Alle-handa translated translation usually being the first or second translation and published “Spådomen” (“Pots o’ Money,” Strand, of fifty Wodehouse novels over the years. With another December 1912). fan, Tomas Prenkert, I have searched more than 4,500 In 1920 the first Swedish translation of a Wodehouse magazines and many years of newspapers from 1912 novel (Piccadilly Jim) was published, and in the next onwards for translations of Wodehouse. So far we five years, five more Wodehouse books were published have found almost 100 short stories and four serialized in Sweden, each the first translation of that novel. By novels, the first being Jill the Reckless (Glada Jill) from 1940, more than forty stories had appeared in Swedish 1922. The readers of the magazines evidently liked his consisted of twenty stories from The Golf Omnibus. stories, and so the editors were quite eager to bring them Her translations were labors of love. She analyzed to their Swedish readers. Many stories were published every sentence for allegorical nuances, hidden personal very soon after their first appearance in English or allusions, and quotations from classical literature. American magazines. Through these publications, To understand the popularity of Wodehouse Wodehouse reached a large audience in Sweden. in Sweden, you must appreciate the quality of the For some reason, Young Men in Spats never translations, and we were very lucky to have two appeared in Sweden, but magazines published all brilliant translators. Yet, remarkably, a lot of Swedes still eleven stories shortly after the originals showed up in prefer to read Wodehouse in English. Cosmopolitan and Strand magazine. In 2010, with the Wodehouse never lost his Swedish readers after the permission of the Wodehouse Estate, we collected these Berlin broadcasts. In Sweden he was regarded as a true in Drönarhistorier (Drones Stories), which is the 79th anti-Nazi since the late 1930s. Thus, in September 1941, Swedish Wodehouse publication. In 2011 Tomas and when the left-oriented magazine Folket i Bild printed I edited another anthology, Bland lorder och drönare Wodehouse’s article “My War with Germany” (Saturday (Among Lords and Drones), which includes fourteen Evening Post, July 19, 1941) under the headline “Mitt PGW short stories that had been previously published krig med Hitler” (“My War with Hitler”), it was with a only in Swedish magazines. In 2013 our society brought positive introduction. It was illustrated with a drawing forth an anthology with my translations of Wodehouse’s of Wodehouse in jail ironically smiling at a diminutive, seven parodies of Sherlock Holmes stories. So to date surprised Hitler. we have 81 books in Swedish in 193 different editions. During the war, nine new Wodehouse books Why did Sweden become the first country where were published in Sweden. Among them was Money Wodehouse’s stories were translated? What made him in the Bank (1942), which was published in English so popular in Sweden as early as the 1920s, in a country simultaneously with the first U.S. edition as well as in with fewer than six million inhabitants, where German Swedish. was the first foreign language one studied at school? Thus far, hundreds of articles about Wodehouse Humorous and detective stories were quite popular have appeared in Swedish publications over the years, in Sweden a hundred years ago. Authors like Arthur the latest in April 2012 in a magazine with half a million Conan Doyle were well known, so editors kept an eye subscribers. on what was published in England and the USA, and The film industry also wanted to benefit from his translations often appeared in magazines that sold over popularity, and in 1938 and 1945, two movies were 200,000 copies. Through these periodicals, Wodehouse made in Sweden based on his novels. reached many readers, more so than through his In 1984, four students (and golfing friends) at published books. The combination of humor, love, and Uppsala University founded Wodehouse’s Friends. This “crime” appealed to Swedish readers. eventually evolved to become the Swedish Wodehouse In 1933 Georg Svensson became chief editor of Society, four years after the U.S. society but thirteen Bonniers, Sweden’s leading publisher. A Wodehouse years before the U.K. society. New members of the fan, he engaged Vilgot Hammarling to translate some Society had to make a speech about some interesting of PGW’s works. Hammarling had been the London part of Wodehouse’s writing, e.g., the Mulliner family, correspondent for a Swedish newspaper. He spoke Wodehouse in theatre and musicals, the timetable English like a native, he was a brilliant stylist, and to Market Blandings, Bertie Wooster’s engagements, he was familiar with every facet of British society. etc. In our yearbook Jeeves we try to publish research He knew clubs and pubs and he loved Wodehouse’s articles about Wodehouse and his life and work. novels. Hammarling’s translations perfectly captured One ambition of the Society, now with about 220 the spirit of Wodehouse, and his first book, Leave It members, was that Wodehouse should be posthumously to Psmith, went through twelve editions in 54 years. awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. For many years Further translations of several novels and short stories the Society petitioned the Swedish Academy nominating contributed to Wodehouse’s popularity in the 1930s. him for the prize. However, the Academy kept insisting When Hammarling became counselor of the that Wodehouse did not fit their criteria, and after one Swedish Embassy in London in 1938, Svensson found of our petitions, they chose instead an unknown poet. his successor, Birgitta Hammar, who had the same Eventually, after many appeals, the Academy in 2011 empathy with Wodehouse’s style. She translated 48 decided that no author would receive a posthumous Wodehouse books over 58 years. The last, in 1996, Nobel Prize in literature. Sorry, Wodehouse! 2 Plum Lines Vol. 35 No. 3 Autumn 2014 own, about Wodehouse in Swedish, with some articles in English as well. One article that might be of interest is “The Political P. G. Wodehouse,” which was previously printed in an abridged form in Wooster Sauce. It’s an intriguing study of Wodehouse’s own views, as well as commentary by his characters, on the political situation in the world. It would seem, according to the article, that Wodehouse was not as politically naïve as he is sometimes painted. We also have our society website (www.wodehouse. se), which caters to the members of that group. The conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that Wodehouse was, is, and will continue to be very popular in Sweden! “Wodehouse’s Friends” at a meeting on October 24, 1984, with two honorary members. Sforzandi Before Breakfast In the middle of the front row sits Birgitta Hammar, eth Carroll found this in the August 2–3, 2014, translator of 48 Wodehouse novels, and Georg Svensson, Bedition of the Wall Street Journal, in Edmund chief editor at Bonniers for almost fifty years and Morris’ review of Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by publisher of about sixty novels in 140 editions. Jan Swafford: “You cannot do him justice unless you talk about his enharmonic modulations and syncopated So, Wodehouse’s writing came to Sweden over a sforzandi, but as soon as you do so, persons lacking the century ago and has done well ever since. He is still very rudiments of music theory will protest much as Bertie popular, and in Uppsala on November 1, 2013, Sweden Wooster did to his girl friend’s readings in applied enjoyed a world premiere of Fore!, a new musical play ethics—‘not the sort of thing to spring on a lad with a based on four of his golf stories. English artists John morning head.’” Fiske and Paul Kessel were responsible for the script and direction, and music from the 1930s was used for the score. After nine performances they staged it again Bibliomantic Chump in January and February of this year. ob Rains found this in Mark Forsyth’s The The latest theatre news is that Perfect Nonsense BUnknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of opened in Sweden on August 1, 2014, at a theatre Not Getting What You Wanted: north of Stockholm. The play has been translated into Swedish, and one of its authors arrived from England There’s always a strange feeling you get when for the opening show.