P. G. Wodehouse in the context of "Psmith"

The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers, producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn. Built on a narrow slice of land located at 104–106 West 39th Street, just off Sixth Avenue in New York City, and seating just 299 people, it was one of the smallest Broadway theatres when it opened in early 1913. The architect was William A. Swasey, who designed the Winter Garden Theatre two years earlier.

Though small, the theatre had a profound effect on the development of American musical theatre. After producing a series of plays, the theatre hosted a famous series of sophisticated musicals by the team of Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, between 1915 and 1918 that were believable, humorous and musically innovative, and integrated their songs with their stories. These were considered an artistic step forward for American musical theatre, inspiring the next generation of writers and composers. Afterwards, the theatre hosted more plays and later served as a movie theatre and a recreation center. It was torn down in 1955.

James Hugh Calum Laurie (/ˈlɒri/; born 11 June 1959) is an English actor and comedian.

Laurie first gained professional recognition as a member of the English comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry. Fry and Laurie acted together in several projects during the 1980s and 1990s, including the BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie and the P. G. Wodehouse adaptation Jeeves and Wooster. From 1986 to 1989, Laurie appeared in three series of the period comedy Blackadder.

Anansi Boys is a fantasy novel by English writer Neil Gaiman. In the novel, "Mr. Nancy"—an incarnation of the West African trickster god Anansi—dies, leaving twin sons, who in turn discover one another's existence after being separated as young children. The novel follows their adventures as they explore their common heritage. Although it is not a sequel to Gaiman's previous novel American Gods, the character of Mr. Nancy appears in both books.

Gaiman mentioned author Thorne Smith as a strong influence when writing the book; "In the back of my head, when I was writing it, I had a writer named Thorne Smith", and "...the Thorne Smith approach to books with eruptions of magic into normal lives seemed like a territory that would be worthwhile to explore." In the dedication to the novel, he also "tips his hat" to P. G. Wodehouse, Tex Avery and Zora Neale Hurston.

Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg.

A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades. His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejected, earlier musical theatre tradition. He and his collaborators also employed his melodies to further the action or develop characterization to a greater extent than in the other musicals of his day, creating the model for later musicals. Although dozens of Kern's musicals and musical films were hits, only Show Boat is now regularly revived. Songs from his other shows, however, are still frequently performed and adapted. Many of Kern's songs have been adapted by jazz musicians to become standard tunes.

Guy Reginald Bolton (23 November 1884 – 4 September 1979) was an Anglo-American playwright and writer of musical comedies. Born in England and educated in France and the US, he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G. Wodehouse and Fred Thompson, with whom he wrote 21 and 14 shows respectively, and the American playwright George Middleton, with whom he wrote ten shows. Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., Ian Hay and Weston and Lee. In the US, he worked with George and Ira Gershwin, Kalmar and Ruby and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Bolton is best known for his early work on the Princess Theatre musicals during the First World War with Wodehouse and the composer Jerome Kern. These shows moved the American musical away from the traditions of European operetta to small scale, intimate productions with what the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls "smart and witty integrated books and lyrics, considered to be a watershed in the evolution of the American musical." Among his 50 plays and musicals, most of which were considered "frothy confections", additional hits included Primrose (1924), the Gershwins' Lady, Be Good (1924) and especially Cole Porter's Anything Goes (1934).

A comic novel is a novel-length work of humorous fiction. Many well-known authors have written comic novels, including P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Fielding, Mark Twain, and John Kennedy Toole. Comic novels are often defined by the author's literary choice to make the thrust of the work—in its narration or plot—funny or satirical in orientation, regardless of the putative seriousness of the topics addressed.