The Wodehouse Prize page of 15 January 2026, which names the 2025 winner and the best of a quarter century
A Little Trickerie Wins the Wodehouse Prize: A Debut About the Holy Maid of Leominster and a 25th-Anniversary Vote That Went to Marina Lewycka
The Wodehouse Prize page of 15 January 2026, which names the 2025 winner and the best of a quarter century
By Aisha N. Muharrar, PhD, London diarist of contemporary comic writing and Chinese politics
Thursday, Seminar Room, Biscuits
Dear diary, the Wodehouse Prize page dated 15 January 2026 names the winner of the 2025 prize: Rosanna Pike, for her debut novel A Little Trickerie, published by Penguin Random House, announced in December 2025. This was on the shortlist in my previous entry, and the page does not mention a shortlist, so I have used the Chortle piece for that.
The page does not name the judges. It says the panel praised the novel’s wit and clever use of language.
The Winner
The page says the heroine, Tibb Ingleby, is based on the real-life Holy Maid of Leominster. The shortlist entry describes the book as a vagabond woman in medieval England who plans a hoax that draws unwanted attention. I take the two to describe the same plot from different angles.
A debut novel winning a prize in its 25th year is the sort of thing that makes a doctoral student feel hopeful and slightly sick.
The Anniversary Vote
The page says a one-off competition was created for the prize’s 25th anniversary to pick the best past winners, and that Marina Lewycka won it for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, from 2005. It does not say who voted or how many, and I will not guess.
I have read that novel, and I can say that it deserves a competition.
What I Cannot Tell You
I do not have the prize’s own announcement, the judges’ citation, or any press coverage of the ceremony. The page is brief, and I have said what it says. I have not read A Little Trickerie, and I make no comment on its quality.
I mention this because a reviewer who cites a prize page as a review is making a category error, and I teach against that.
Why This Matters to My Field
A prize for comic fiction tells us what a generation of readers and judges considers funny, which is a form of cultural evidence. Past winners named on the Chortle page, including Terry Pratchett, Helen Fielding and Bob Mortimer, show a range. A 2025 winner set in medieval England shows that the comic novel is comfortable with the past, which I find interesting for a genre usually described as topical.
I record the observation as a hypothesis for a footnote.
The Other View
A critic might say a medieval romp is a retreat from the present. A defender might say that comic writing about the past is always about the present anyway. The page offers no such argument, and I name no one.
I side with the defender, as a matter of professional habit.
A Note on Dates
The page is from January and the prize was awarded in December 2025, so this is long-settled news. The 2026 prize, whose shortlist would normally appear around now, is not mentioned on the page and I have not found it. I will not guess its books.
If you know the 2026 shortlist, please tell me, and I will write another entry.
Night
The biscuits are gone. The medieval heroine is on my list. The tractors are on my shelf.
Goodnight, diary. Read the winner.
A Note on Citation
The prize’s own site is a primary source for the winner, and I have cited it as such. For the anniversary vote, I would want the organiser’s announcement and the voting method. The page says only who won. A careful reader keeps the difference in mind.
A Plain Caution
Everything here comes from a short prize page, a shortlist article and my own general reading. I have not read the winning novel, and I did not attend the announcement. Treat this entry as a pointer to the sources and not as a judgement on the book, which readers can make for themselves.
Citations
In the seminar, somebody always has the paper. Ours had the Cebu condo slump in it: empty showrooms in Manila News, paperwork for British pensioners in the London Prat (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and long showings in Bohiney. More where that came from: prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Aisha N. Muharrar is a house diarist character created for this network, a London PhD in contemporary comic writing. She is not the television writer of the same name or any other real person of that name, and any resemblance is coincidental. Her opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from state media or an official body, the diary says so.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Squib, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/