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.
16 Facts About Lord Emsworth
1.
2.
Lord Emsworth is the amiable and somewhat absent-minded head of the large Threepwood family.
3.
The last completed work by Wodehouse in which Emsworth appears is A Pelican at Blandings.
4.
Lord Emsworth is in Wodehouse's unfinished novel Sunset at Blandings.
5.
Wodehouse frequently named his characters after places with which he was familiar, and Lord Emsworth takes his name from the Hampshire town of Emsworth, where Wodehouse spent some time in the 1900s; he first went there in 1903, at the invitation of his friend Herbert Westbrook, and later took a lease on a house there called "Threepwood Cottage", which name he used as Lord Emsworth's family name.
6.
Lord Emsworth is consistently presented just shy of sixty years old; since Wodehouse wrote about him for over half a century, in novels more or less set in the present, this means that his dates vary depending on what one is reading.
7.
Lord Emsworth has ten sisters, two brothers, two sons, at least one daughter, and many in-laws.
8.
Lord Emsworth is a long, thin, bald old man with a tendency towards scruffiness, generally found in a worn old tweed jacket and trousers that bag at the knees.
9.
Lord Emsworth wears pince-nez on a string around his neck, which he nevertheless often loses.
10.
Lord Emsworth resents being forced to dress up smartly, especially when he is called on to address crowds and most of all loathes having to visit London when the sun is shining.
11.
Additionally, Lord Emsworth Bosham is variously described as having two sons or three sons.
12.
Lord Emsworth shuns his administrative duties and generally has a secretary to handle such things; amongst the occupants of this post have been the likes of Hugo Carmody, Monty Bodkin and Psmith, although by far the best known, and least appreciated by his Lordship, is Rupert Baxter, the bespectacled efficiency expert, who made Emsworth's life a misery with his ruthless organisation of his master's precious time.
13.
Lord Emsworth won first prize for roses at the Shrewsbury Flower Show in the same year Psmith's father won the tulip prize, and he is invariably amongst the competitors in Shropshire's Agriculture Show.
14.
Lord Emsworth has some success in the field of large pumpkins, taking first prize in the competition with his "Blandings Hope".
15.
Lord Emsworth later enters his prize sow, the Empress of Blandings, who wins the coveted Fat Pigs contest several years in a row.
16.
Lord Emsworth plays some part in all the novels and short stories in the Blandings canon.