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Author | Stephen Fry |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Autobiography |
Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 1997 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) Digital (eBook) |
Pages | 448 pages |
ISBN | 0-09-945704-0 |
Followed by | The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography |
Moab Is My Washpot (published 1997) is Stephen Fry's autobiography, covering the first 20 years of his life. In the book, Fry is candid about his past indiscretions, including stealing, cheating and lying. The book covers some of the same ground as in Fry's first novel, The Liar , published in 1991. In that work, public schoolboy Adrian Healey falls in love with a boy called Hugo Cartwright; in the autobiography, 14-year-old Fry becomes besotted with 13-year-old "Matthew Osborne".
Fry also writes about his older brother Roger, Bunce (the new boy at his prep school, Stouts Hill), Jo Wood (his best friend at Uppingham), and Oliver Derwent (a prefect who "seduces" Fry).
The title, never explained in the text of the book, is a verse found in Psalm 60 and Psalm 108. Through wearing sandals, people's feet would become filthy in the dusty desert environment and upon entering a home feet would be washed with water by pouring water over them into a washpot. Moab, which had threatened Israel, was to be so completely subdued, that it became likened to a wash pot or basin. [1] This title was selected because Fry saw the book as "scrubbing at the grime of years". [2]
Fry, being a fervent P.G. Wodehouse fan (having written a foreword to a "Best of" compilation of his works, and having played Jeeves in the British comedy series on his works), is likely to have been inspired by a quote from Uncle Fred mentioning Pongo Twistleton's exploits in the novel Uncle Dynamite :
"Pongo," said Lord Ickenham, "is in terrific form. He bestrides the world like a Colossus. It would not be too much to say that Moab is his washpot and over what's-its-name has he cast his shoe." [3]
In a 2001 article for the Evening Standard , Andrew Billen wrote that Fry was reunited with "Osborne" after the publication of the book:
Many pages of the deepest purple are devoted to this Matthew Osborne, "the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life". I ask if the pseudonymous Matthew, with whom he eventually achieved some form of splendour in the long grass, had been in touch since the book came out in 1997. He had.
How did he take it? "Very well. He is very happily married with children. A wonderful chap and hugely successful as it happens," Fry chuckles, incredulous. "I think his wife knows because she is extremely friendly to me in a way that suggests to me she knows all about it and is very happy with it. I see him a couple of times a year, I suppose." [4]
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane, and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind.
The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.
Uncle Dynamite is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 22 October 1948 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 29 November 1948 by Didier & Co., New York. It features the mischievous Uncle Fred, who had previously appeared in Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939).
Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, commonly known as Uncle Fred, is a fictional character who appears in comedic short stories and novels written by P. G. Wodehouse between 1935 and 1961. An energetic and mischievous old chap, his talent for trouble is the bane of his nephew Pongo Twistleton's life.
Right Ho, Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, the second full-length novel featuring the popular characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, after Thank You, Jeeves. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1934 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on 15 October 1934 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, under the title Brinkley Manor. It had also been sold to the Saturday Evening Post, in which it appeared in serial form from 23 December 1933 to 27 January 1934, and in England in the Grand Magazine from April to September 1934. Wodehouse had already started planning this sequel while working on Thank You, Jeeves.
The Liar is the first novel of British writer and actor Stephen Fry. The story is told out of chronological order but mostly follows the upper-class Englishman Adrian Healey through his years at public school, at Cambridge University, and afterwards. He excels at lying and entire chapters are later revealed to have been fictions. He ultimately ends up teaching at Cambridge as part of an old boys' club in British intelligence, which alleviates its boredom during the decline of the empire and end of the Cold War by partaking in make-believe espionage missions.
Young Men in Spats is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 3 April 1936 by Herbert Jenkins, London, then in the United States with a slightly different selection of stories on 24 July 1936 by Doubleday, Doran, New York.
Uncle Fred in the Springtime is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 18 August 1939 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, and in the United Kingdom on 25 August 1939 by Herbert Jenkins, London.
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.
"Uncle Fred Flits By" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, which was published in the United States in the July 1935 edition of Redbook, and in the United Kingdom in the December 1935 issue of the Strand. It was included in the collection Young Men in Spats (1936).
Stouts Hill is an 18th-Century Gothic revival country house situated in the Cotswolds, just outside the village of Uley.
Sir Oliver Bury Popplewell is a British former judge and cricket player. He chaired the inquiry into the Bradford City stadium fire, presided over the libel case brought by Jonathan Aitken MP against The Guardian newspaper which eventually led to Aitken's imprisonment for perjury, and was widely reported for asking "What is Linford's lunchbox?" during a case over which he was presiding, brought by Linford Christie. He played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and was president of the Marylebone Cricket Club from 1994–96. He wrote a book about his legal career.
Stephen Fry is an English actor, comedian, author and television presenter. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster. Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, played Melchett in the Blackadder television series, and was the host of celebrity comedy trivia show QI. He has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and three autobiographies, Moab Is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles, and More Fool Me: A Memoir.
Psalm 26, the 26th psalm of the Book of Psalms in the Bible, begins : "Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity".
Psalm 60 is the 60th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us". In the slightly different numbering system of the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible and the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 59. In Latin, it is known as "Deus reppulisti nos et destruxisti nos". It is addressed "to the chief Musician upon Shushan Eduth", referring to the title of a song, presumably identifying the intended melody, mentioned only here and in Psalm 80, and described as "a Michtam of David, when he strove with Aramnaharaim and with Aramzobah, when Joab returned, and smote of Edom in the valley of salt twelve thousand." The heading text in the Revised Standard Version and the New American Bible Revised Edition refers to Aram-Zobah, whereas in the New King James Version the reference is to Zobah. The psalm has been called a psalm of communal lament.
The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography is the 2010 autobiography of Stephen Fry. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography. Though without a strict chronology, it concentrates on a seven-year period of Fry's life, taking up the story after his release from prison, his time at the University of Cambridge and his career in comedy by the late 1980s.
Angus John Mackintosh Stewart was a British writer, best known for his novel Sandel. He was an accomplished portrait photographer. For much of his life he suffered from clinical depression.
More Fool Me: A Memoir is the 2014 autobiography of Stephen Fry. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography, and the 2010 The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography. It contains an overview of these previous two volumes, and an account of Fry's later cocaine addiction, chiefly covering the years 1986–93. Other major topics include Fry's writing of The Hippopotamus, his work on the TV series A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster and Blackadder Goes Forth; the radio series Saturday Night Fry; and the films Peter's Friends and Stalag Luft. The book is Fry's tenth, and his third volume of autobiography.
Abbey Crunch was a British biscuit brand produced by McVitie's. The tag line was "the original oat biscuit".