Paul Jennings (UK author)
Encyclopedia
Paul Francis Jennings was a British
humourist. He mostly wrote short articles; his most famous collection is The Jenguin Pennings, published in 1963 by Penguin books
(hence the Spoonerism
of the title).
Although he wrote a small number of books for children, Jennings should not be confused with Paul Jennings
, an Australia
n children's writer.
Jennings lived for much of his life in East Bergholt
, Suffolk
, England
, UK, with this wife, Celia and their six children.
during the Second World War. His first publication was "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" in the April 1943 edition of Lilliput
magazine. Freelance work for Punch and The Spectator
soon followed. Leaving the army with the rank of Lieutenant
, he briefly worked as a scriptwriter for the Central Office of Information
and then spent two years as an advertising copywriter; throughout this period his freelance work continued to be published.
In 1949 he joined The Observer
, contributing a weekly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966. After leaving The Observer, he continued to write until his death, mainly seeing print in Punch, The Times
and the Telegraph magazine.
from the instructions in a German
set using their extremely limited knowledge of the language:
Sometimes his pieces would be poems, or written in novel forms of language, such as the Romance
-eschewing Anglish
, or that of a toy 19-letter pipewipen (typewriter
). Other articles were extended flights of fancy, such as "The Unthinkable Carrier" (1960), based on the idea of cutting Britain free of the Earth's crust so that it could float around the oceans and guarantee world peace, with the Isle of Wight
kept in place by a tow chain. In a late 1950s piece Sleep for Sale he prefigured the concept of the Capsule hotel
("Over to you, capitalists. But remember, I thought of it first."). Several of his pieces touched on the invented philosophical movement of Resistentialism
.
Jennings was an admirer of James Thurber
, who in 1955 attended a dinner party at Jennings' house and subsequently wrote of the conversation in a New Yorker
piece.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
humourist. He mostly wrote short articles; his most famous collection is The Jenguin Pennings, published in 1963 by Penguin books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
(hence the Spoonerism
Spoonerism
A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency...
of the title).
Although he wrote a small number of books for children, Jennings should not be confused with Paul Jennings
Paul Jennings (Australian author)
Paul Jennings AM is an English-born Australian children's book writer. His books mainly feature short stories that lead the reader through an unusual series of events that end with a twist.-Biography:...
, an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n children's writer.
Jennings lived for much of his life in East Bergholt
East Bergholt
East Bergholt is a village in the south of Suffolk, England, just north of the Essex border. It is "twinned" with the village of Barbizon, France....
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, UK, with this wife, Celia and their six children.
Career
Jennings began his career serving in the Royal SignalsRoyal Corps of Signals
The Royal Corps of Signals is one of the combat support arms of the British Army...
during the Second World War. His first publication was "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" in the April 1943 edition of Lilliput
Lilliput (magazine)
Lilliput was a small-format British monthly magazine of humour, short stories, photographs and the arts, founded in 1937 by the photojournalist Stefan Lorant. The first issue came out in July and it was sold shortly after to Edward Hulton, when editorship was taken over by Tom Hopkinson in 1940....
magazine. Freelance work for Punch and The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
soon followed. Leaving the army with the rank of Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
, he briefly worked as a scriptwriter for the Central Office of Information
Central Office of Information
The Central Office of Information is the UK government's marketing and communications agency. Its Chief Executive, currently Mark Lund, reports to the Minister for the Cabinet Office...
and then spent two years as an advertising copywriter; throughout this period his freelance work continued to be published.
In 1949 he joined The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, contributing a weekly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966. After leaving The Observer, he continued to write until his death, mainly seeing print in Punch, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and the Telegraph magazine.
Style
In general his articles take the form of whimsical ponderings. Some are based in real life incidents, often involving his friend Harblow; for instance, one of his most celebrated pieces, "How to Spiel Halma" (1949), concerns their attempts to establish the rules of halmaHalma
Halma is a board game invented in 1883 or 1884 by an American thoracic surgeon at Harvard Medical School, George Howard Monks. The inspiration was an English game called Hoppity, which was devised in 1854....
from the instructions in a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
set using their extremely limited knowledge of the language:
- The obvious meaning of this was that the Against-man must naturally again after that treat, this Stone how possibly in the own House of the Player to shut in.
Sometimes his pieces would be poems, or written in novel forms of language, such as the Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
-eschewing Anglish
Anglish
Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism is a kind of English linguistic purism, which favors words of native origin over those of foreign origin. In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign ones...
, or that of a toy 19-letter pipewipen (typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
). Other articles were extended flights of fancy, such as "The Unthinkable Carrier" (1960), based on the idea of cutting Britain free of the Earth's crust so that it could float around the oceans and guarantee world peace, with the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
kept in place by a tow chain. In a late 1950s piece Sleep for Sale he prefigured the concept of the Capsule hotel
Capsule hotel
A is a type of hotel with a large number of extremely small "rooms" intended to provide cheap and basic overnight accommodation for guests not requiring the services offered by more conventional hotels...
("Over to you, capitalists. But remember, I thought of it first."). Several of his pieces touched on the invented philosophical movement of Resistentialism
Resistentialism
Resistentialism is a jocular theory to describe "seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects." For example, objects that cause problems exhibit a high degree of malice toward humans and lend support to resistentialist beliefs...
.
Jennings was an admirer of James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
, who in 1955 attended a dinner party at Jennings' house and subsequently wrote of the conversation in a New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
piece.
Oddly Enough collections
- Oddly Enough (ReinhardtMax Reinhardt (publisher)Max Reinhardt was a British publisher. He published Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, George Bernard Shaw and Graham Greene.-Biography:...
and Evans, 1950) - Even Oddlier (Reinhardt, 1952)
- Oddly Bodlikins (Reinhardt, 1953)
- Next to Oddliness (Reinhardt, 1955)
- Model Oddlies (Reinhardt, 1956)
- Gladly Oddly (Reinhardt, 1958)
- Idly Oddly (Reinhardt, 1959)
- I said Oddly, Diddle I? (Reinhardt, 1961)
- Oodles of Oddlies (Reinhardt, 1963)
- Oddly Ad Lib (Reinhardt, 1965)
- I Was Joking, Of Course (Reinhardt, 1968)
- It's an Odd Thing, But... ( Reinhardt, 1971)
General collections
- The Jenguin Pennings (PenguinPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, 1963) - A Prescription for Foreing Travel (Guinness, 1966)
- Just a Few Lines (Guinness, 1969)
- I Must Have Imagined It (M Joseph, 1977)
- Golden Oddlies (Methuen, 1983)
- The Paul Jennings Reader (BloomsburyBloomsbury Publishing PlcBloomsbury Publishing plc is an independent, London-based publishing house known for literary novels. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. The company's growth over the past decade is primarily attributable to the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Bloomsbury was named Publisher of...
, 1990) (posthumous)
Books on British Life
- The Living Village (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968)
- Britain as she is Visit (M. Joseph, 1976)
- Companion to Britain (Cassell, 1981)
- East Anglia (Gordon Fraser, 1986)
As editor
- The English Difference (Aurelia Enterprises, 1974) (co-edited with John Gorham)
- The Book of Nonsense (Macdonald, 1977)
- A Feast of Days (Macdonald, 1982)
- My Favourite Railway Stories (Lutterworth Press, 1982)