P G Wodehouse Society (UK) Essay Prize 2025
To mark the 50th anniversary of P G Wodehouse’s death in 2025, the P G Wodehouse Society (UK) is excited to launch its second essay prize competition open to everyone, everywhere. P G Wodehouse’s output was prolific, from poetry, to lyrics for stage and screen, short stories, journalism and novels. “The object of all good literature is to purge the soul of its petty troubles”, so Wodehouse once said, and his writings have provided lighthearted relief from the trials and tribulations of the world to millions of readers worldwide. A prize of £750 will be awarded to the winner of the competition.
The Prize will officially launch on Sunday 1 June and entries will close on Monday 17 November 2025 at 23:59 GMT. All of the information for the prize, including full guidance, judging process and FAQs will be found on the Society’s webpages from the launch date: https://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/essayprize.
The guidelines for the Prize are as follows:
- Word count of 3,000 to 6,000 words, excluding footnotes and bibliography.
- Essays need to be formatted in the MHRA style.
- While the Society does not want to be restrictive in the areas or topics that may be covered (and understand that literary critical essays often draw on illuminating historical and contextual engagement), we are primarily seeking essays that focus on Wodehouse’s novels, stories, lyrics, plays, and journalism, rather than essays of a purely biographical nature.
- Comparative essays are acceptable, but the focus of the essay must be on Wodehouse.
- Works submitted for publication elsewhere will not be considered, and the Society will run a plagiarism check on potential shortlisted essays to verify.
If anyone has any questions about the Prize, please email Dr Becky Andrew (Chair of the Essay Prize) at PGWSocietyUKEssay@gmail.com.
For more regular updates, you can find the Society on social media – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pgwodehouseuk; Instagram/Threads: @pgwsocietyuk; BlueSky: @pgwsocietyuk.bsky.social.