P. G. Wodehouse's short comic book, The Swoop!, or How Clarence Saved England, was originally made available in the UK on April 16, 1909, by Alston Rivers Ltd. in London. A Tale of the Great Invasion has the subtitles. The Military Invasion of America and A Remarkable Tale of the German-Japanese Invasion of 1916 were the titles of a modified and greatly condensed version that was published in the July and August 1915 issues of Vanity Fair. When the story was included in the anthology The Swoop! and Other Stories in 1979, four years after Wodehouse's passing, it was the first to be published in the United States. In The Swoop!, many armies simultaneously invade England "England was not only under the invader's heel. Nine intruders had their heels on it. There was not enough place to stand." — and makes references to a number of well-known historical personalities, including boxer Bob Fitzsimmons, writer Edgar Wallace, politician Herbert Gladstone, and actor-managers Seymour Hicks and George Edwardes. A humorous spoof on the then-popular genre of invasion novels, The Swoop! Wodehouse "reverses all expectations and changes the established pattern."
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic author who experienced huge success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be broadly read over 40 years after his death. He was an English writer and one of the most comprehensively read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford on 15 October 1881, the son of a British Magistrate established in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College. Later he worked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London for two years. He wrote part-time while working in the bank, usually proving successful enough to take it up as a full-time profession. He was a journalist with The Globe (an inactive English newspaper) for several years before usually going to Hollywood, where he earned huge amount as a screenwriter. He was a creative author, writing 96 books in a career scaling from 1902-1975. His works consist of novels, collections of short stories, and a musical comedy. He is best well-known as the creator of Jeeves. He passed on 14 February 1975 in New York, United States.
