Birth of a Salesman

"Birth of a Salesman" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United States in the 26 March 1950 issue of This Week magazine. Part of the Blandings Castle canon, it features the absent-minded peer Lord Emsworth, and was included in the collection Nothing Serious (1950).

The story's title is a play on Death of a Salesman, the now-classic stageplay by Arthur Miller, which had won a Pulitzer Prize the previous year.

Lord Emsworth is visiting America for the wedding of his niece Veronica to millionaire Tipton Plimsoll. With currency restrictions forcing him to stay at Freddie's house in Long Island, Emsworth finds himself ill at ease, chafed by his son's new-found self-confidence, the result of his successes as a salesman.

Left alone in the house one day, Emsworth finds the cold lunch left for him unappealing, and resolves to fix himself some scrambled eggs. This task proves more difficult than he recalled from his more active youth, and when a young girl calls at the door selling richly bound encyclopaedias of Sport, he invites her in to make them for him and join him at his lunch.

The girl, who is only known as "Mrs Ed", reveals she is trying to earn money, as she has a baby on the way. Emsworth's sense of chivalry is aroused, and he offers to sell her encyclopaedias for her, while she has a lie down on the couch. He heads at once for the house of a near neighbour, who Freddie had earlier warned him had a conspicuous habit of throwing wild parties and filling his house with blondes while his wife was away. This behaviour, striking Emsworth as indicative of a sporting nature, persuades the elderly peer that the man must also be in need of his encyclopaedias.