A superb storyteller - one of the very best in our language

The modern writer who has influenced me most

Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist

This semi-autobiographical novel, set at the end of the 19th century, gripped me from the start with its tale of the life of Philip Carey. Its depiction of how a man can become enslaved by an unsuitable love is unsparing

Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists

P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection

A genius ... Elusive, delicate but lasting

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

The greatest comic writer ever

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

Sublime comic genius