George Alexander Pyke, Lord Tilbury is a recurring fictional character in the stories of British author P. G. Wodehouse. Pyke is a publishing magnate, the founder and owner of the Mammoth Publishing Company. Outside his business, he has a passion for pigs and is the owner of a prize pig named Buckingham Big Boy. Pyke appears in several novels, including two set at Blandings Castle: Heavy Weather (1933) and Service With a Smile (1961). [1]
According to Robert McCrum, Wodehouse knew the British publishing magnate Lord Northcliffe, who served as a source of inspiration for Lord Tilbury. [2]
Wodehouse introduces Pyke in Bill the Conqueror as plain Sir George Pyke. Mammoth Publishing Company is already a mighty undertaking and Pyke is about to become a Lord – he selects the Tilbury title based on the address of his headquarters, at Tilbury House on Tilbury Street.
Pyke is not a tall man and runs somewhat to fat. His similarity to Napoleon, both in physique and character, is often remarked upon. He is a widower, his late wife Lucy having left him a son named Roderick. He also has a sister named Francie, who is married to an archaeologist, and he had an elder brother, Edmund Pyke.
After school, where he knew both Lord Emsworth and his brother Galahad Threepwood and was given the nickname Stinker, he became a clerk in a solicitor's office, but soon broke into the media, founding his first magazine, Pyke's Weekly. With the success of this paper, thanks in no small part to the advice of his sister, Pyke's empire began to grow, accumulating such titles as Society Spice and Home Gossip.
Pyke's right-hand man at the Mammoth is Percy Pilbeam, an efficient young man who becomes editor of Society Spice when Pyke's son runs off, and later heads up a detective agency.
George Pyke appears in the following books:
The Mammoth Publishing Company crops up in many other stories, for example providing employment for Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine in Something Fresh .
Norman Shelley portrayed Lord Tilbury in the 1938 radio adaptation of Sam the Sudden, which was titled Semi-Detached. [3]
Lord Tilbury was voiced by John Savident in the Blandings radio series adaptation of Heavy Weather in 1988. [4] He was portrayed by Richard Johnson in the 1995 television film Heavy Weather .
Blandings Castle is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being the seat of Lord Emsworth, home to many of his family and the setting for numerous tales and adventures. The stories were written between 1915 and 1975.
Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl Emsworth, commonly known as Lord Emsworth, is a recurring fictional character in the Blandings Castle series of stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. He is the amiable and somewhat absent-minded head of the large Threepwood family. Longing for nothing more than to talk to his prize pig, Empress of Blandings, or potter peacefully in the idyllic gardens of Blandings Castle, he must frequently face the unpleasant reality of his domineering sisters and familial duties.
Summer Lightning is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 1 July 1929 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, under the title Fish Preferred, and in the United Kingdom on 19 July 1929 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It was serialised in The Pall Mall Magazine (UK) between March and August 1929 and in Collier's (US) from 6 April to 22 June 1929.
Montague "Monty" Bodkin is a recurring fictional character in three novels of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a wealthy young member of the Drones Club, well-dressed, well-spoken, impeccably polite, and generally in some kind of romantic trouble.
Sebastian Beach is a fictional character in the Blandings stories by P. G. Wodehouse. He is the butler at Blandings Castle, seat of Lord Emsworth and his family, where he serves for over eighteen years.
Rupert J. Baxter is a fictional character in the Blandings stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Often called the Efficient Baxter, he is Lord Emsworth's secretary, and an expert on many things, including Egyptian scarabs. He invariably wears his rimless spectacles, suspects everyone of being an impostor, and is, as his epithet suggests, extremely efficient.
Empress of Blandings is a fictional pig, featured in many of the Blandings Castle novels and stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Owned by the doting Lord Emsworth, the Empress is an enormous black Berkshire sow, who wins many prizes in the "Fat Pigs" class at the local Shropshire Agricultural Show, and is the subject of many plots and schemes, generally involving her kidnap for various purposes. In 2005 Hall & Woodhouse, the Dorset-based Brewers of Badger beer, named a public house in Hampshire in honour of the Empress.
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, 7th Baronet is a fictional character from the Blandings Castle short stories and novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. In the stories, Parsloe resides at Matchingham Hall, near Blandings Castle, and is the rival and enemy of Lord Emsworth.
Heavy Weather is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 28 July 1933 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, and in the United Kingdom on 10 August 1933 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It had been serialised in The Saturday Evening Post from 27 May to 15 July 1933.
Bill the Conqueror is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 13 November 1924 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States on 20 February 1925 by George H. Doran, New York, the story having previously been serialised in The Saturday Evening Post from 24 May to 12 July 1924.
Sam the Sudden is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 15 October 1925 by Methuen, London, and in the United States on 6 November 1925 by George H. Doran, New York, under the title Sam in the Suburbs. The story had previously been serialised under that title in the Saturday Evening Post from 13 June to 18 July 1925.
Service with a Smile is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 15 October 1961 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on 17 August 1962 by Herbert Jenkins, London. A condensed version of the story had previously been published in two parts in the Toronto Star Weekly, on 26 August and 2 September 1961.
Frozen Assets is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 14 July 1964 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York under the title Biffen's Millions, and in the United Kingdom on 14 August 1964 by Herbert Jenkins, London.
Percy Frobisher Pilbeam is a fictional character in the works of P. G. Wodehouse. A journalist turned detective, he is a rather weak and unpleasant man, generally disliked by all. He appears in several novels, but is perhaps best known for his involvement with the denizens of Blandings Castle, in Summer Lightning (1929) and Heavy Weather (1933).
The following is a list of recurring or notable fictional locations featured in the stories of P. G. Wodehouse, in alphabetical order by place name.
"Pig-Hoo-o-o-o-ey" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United States in the 9 July 1927 issue of Liberty, and in the United Kingdom in the August 1927 Strand. Part of the Blandings Castle canon, it features the absent-minded peer Lord Emsworth, and was included in the collection Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935), although the story takes place sometime between the events of Leave It to Psmith (1923) and Summer Lightning (1929).
Lady Constance Keeble is a recurring fictional character in the Blandings Castle stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being Lord Emsworth's most formidable sister, a strikingly handsome woman, with a fair, broad brow, and perfectly even white teeth. She has the carriage of an empress, and her large grey eyes are misleadingly genial.
Heavy Weather is a television film with a screenplay by Douglas Livingstone based on the 1933 novel Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse, set at Blandings Castle. It was made by the BBC and WGBH Boston, first screened by the BBC on Christmas Eve 1995 and shown in the United States on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre on 18 February 1996.
The Blandings radio series is a series of radio dramas based on the Blandings Castle stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. The stories were dramatised by Wodehouse biographer Richard Usborne. The series ran between 1985 and 1992 on BBC Radio 4.