Peter Schwed died on Thursday, 31st July, 2003. With his passing goes one of the last creative links with Plum Wodehouse.

Schwed was employed by Simon and Schuster as Wodehouse's editor and go-between, from 1953 until Wodehouse's death in 1975.

Wodehouse wrote to him "What joy working for an editor like you who makes constructive suggestions."  And Schwed returned the compliment: "That's what I like to see – an author who is also an editor – it leaves me time for visiting the nightclubs and playing tennis."

Peter Schwed was one of those responsible for the many changes of title between the English and American editions. He has made the job of collectors and bibliographers more difficult than was needed. It was therefore unkind of him to write "In recent years there have been several scholarly volumes devoted to the writings of P G Wodehouse and these naturally include in one way or another a complete list of his books. I tip my hat in admiration in the direction of anyone who has actually succeeded in scoring a perfect mark in that undertaking because I, admittedly no professional bibliographer, have tried to do it more than once over the past quarter of a century or so when I have been his American editor. It's a little like trying to square the circle. The works of Wodehouse ... are not numerically infinite but, whether for good or bad reasons, English and American editions frequently bear different titles."

Wodehouse dedicated four books to him: more than to anyone else except Leonora his daughter. Better than that, Schwed crops up in the text. In Frozen Assets (was it Schwed who turned that into the American Biffen's Millions?) the debagged Lord Tilbury asks his lawyer if he can sue the man who did it, and is told by reference to "Schwed versus Meredith" that he can't.

Peter Schwed wrote this description of his first meeting with Wodehouse:

"That year we had a not very literate receptionist who not only didn't recognise his name but had an intriguing habit of wiping her memory and slate clean of anything that took place before she went off on a coffee break. When Plum arrived that day she seated him in a dark corner and dashed off to get hers before the Danish pastry ran out. Plum, ever a courteous and philosophical man as well as a shy one, sat in his corner and puffed his pipe. And sat. And sat.

"I had been in a meeting out of which I expected to be called immediately upon the Great One's arrival, but when the meeting ended and there had been no word, I went out to the receptionist's desk to see if there had been a message about Mr Wodehouse's being delayed. She was still mulling this difficult query over in her mind when the elderly gentleman emerged from his dark corner beaming, and came towards me with one hand outstretched and a manuscript held in the other. He had been waiting patiently without ever enquiring about the delay for almost an hour but he shook off all my apologies. 'I've had plenty of practice,' he said, 'in doctors' waiting rooms.'

"That quiet, good-humoured acceptance of the chips as they happened to fall was typical of Plum. He was not only a gentleman, he was a gentle man who never used his sharp wit as a weapon in personal relationships. He saved that for his writing, and among friends in a living room or around a dinner table he invariably was the appreciative listener, laughing approvingly of others' feeble bon mots."

Peter Schwed was better able than most of us to know Plum Wodehouse as a great man as well as a great writer.

We send our condolences to his family.