I’m a wealthy bird, so everything was fine.
(Bertie Wooster stating the fundamental premise of the stories.)
‘This is the first time I’ve been let out alone, and I mean to make the most of it. We’re only young once. Why interfere with life’s morning? Young man, rejoice in thy youth! Tra-la! What ho!’
Put like that, it did seem reasonable.
The Jeeves and Wooster stories began during the First World War. Jeeves and Bertie first appeared in ‘Extricating Young Gussie’, a short story published in the US in September 1915 and in the UK in 1916. In the story, Jeeves’s character is minor and Bertie’s surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps.
The first fully recognisable Jeeves and Wooster story was ‘Leave It to Jeeves’, published in early 1916. Most of the Jeeves stories were originally published as magazine pieces before being collected into books.
Altogether the Jeeves canon consists of 35 short stories and 11 novels. With minor exceptions, the short stories were written and published first (between 1915 and 1930), the novels later (between 1934 up to as late as 1974).
My Man, Jeeves
The first collection to include fully formed Jeeves and Wooster stories is ‘My Man Jeeves’, published in 1919 although, of the eight short stories in the volume, only four are about J&W, the other four concern a character called Reggie Pepper.
- Leave It to Jeeves* (February 1916)
- Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest* (December 1916)
- Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg* (March 1917)
- Absent Treatment
- Helping Freddie
- Rallying Round Old George
- Doing Clarence a Bit of Good
- The Aunt and the Sluggard* (April 1916)
Jeeves and Wooster works
All four ‘My Man Jeeves’ stories were subsequently reprinted, some substantially rewritten, in the 1925 collection ‘Carry On, Jeeves’.
But before that collections came the first book consisting entirely of Jeeves and Wooster stories, 1923’s ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’. In this book 11 short stories originally published in magazines were reworked and divided into 18 chapters to make the first collection devoted entirely to J&W.
After this rather shaky start, the Jeeves series runs like this:
- The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) – semi-novel consisting of eighteen chapters, originally published as eleven short stories
- Carry On, Jeeves (1925) – ten stories
- Very Good, Jeeves (1930) – eleven stories
- Thank You, Jeeves (1934) – the first full-length Jeeves novel
- Right Ho, Jeeves (1934) – second Jeeves novel
- The Code of the Woosters (1938) – third Jeeves novel
- Joy in the Morning (1946) – fourth Jeeves novel
- The Mating Season (1949) – fifth Jeeves novel
Plus six further novels, but let’s see if I can read this lot first.
Comic hyperbole
There is a whole comic approach where you exaggerate the ordinary and everyday to dizzy heights of absurdity. In the tradition of learnèd wit (Rabelais, Erasmus, Swift, Sterne) the exaggeration is designed to highlight the absurdity of scholarly learning. In E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books it is to bring out the exquisite small-town bitchiness of the characters. In comedy like Wodehouse’s, the aim is to emphasise the utter uselessness of his empty-headed posh boys. Thus the mock heroic exaggerations of the trivialest things, rendered in absurdly affected argot.
‘What are your immediate plans, Bertie?’
‘Well, I rather thought of tottering out for a bite of lunch later on, and then possibly staggering round to the club, and after that, if I felt strong enough, I might trickle off to Walton Heath for a round of golf.’
‘I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings.’
Slang
A massive part of the pleasure derives from the posh-boy slang or argot which the narrator (Bertie Wooster) employs, with specialised words or phrases in almost every sentence. The slang – and the insouciant attitude behind it – is the most obvious way in which the text takes you into Wodehouse-world. Here are some quotes from just the first few short stories.
I forget now how I got it, but it had the aspect of being the real, red-hot tabasco.
[the real thing]
I’m a bit short on brain myself; the old bean would appear to have been constructed more for ornament than for use, don’t you know.
[brain]
Now, a great many fellows think that having a rich uncle is a pretty soft snap.
[cushy position]
He has got a pippin of an idea.
[a cracker]
I don’t know why it is—one of these psychology sharps could explain it, I suppose… [psychologist]
Time, instead of working the healing wheeze, went and pulled the most awful bone and put the lid on it.
[pull a bone = made a mistake]
‘There are moments when I can almost see the headlines: “Promising Young Artist Beans Baby With Axe.”‘
[wallops, hits, strikes]
I patted his shoulder silently. My sympathy for the poor old scout was too deep for words.
[chap]
I as near as a toucher rebelled when he wouldn’t let me wear a pair of cloth-topped boots which I loved like a couple of brothers.
It will show you pretty well how pipped I was when I tell you that I near as a toucher put on a white tie with a dinner-jacket.
I didn’t want to have England barred to me for the rest of my natural.
[…days i.e. life]
I gave Motty the swift east-to-west.
[surveyed his appearance]
I was just starting to say that the shot wasn’t on the board at any price…
[this plan was not on]
It was as if he were deliberately trying to give me the pip.
[irritate him]
Motty was under the surface.
[drunk]
He can always be counted on to extend himself on behalf of any pal of mine who happens to be to all appearances knee-deep in the bouillon.
[in trouble]
I began to see that, unless I made the thing a bit more plausible, the scheme might turn out a frost.
[failure]
Devilish efficient sort of chappie, and looked on in commercial circles as quite the nib!
Synonyms for ‘man’
- blighter
- old buster
- chappie
- cove
- fellow
- gent
- Johnnie
- lad
- sport
The point is there is a comic exuberance in this plethora of words, there is a joy of language, an infections smile triggered by the sheer multitude of terms Wooster reels off.
Comic quotes
She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season.
I’m all for rational enjoyment and so forth, but I think a chappie makes himself conspicuous when he throws soft-boiled eggs at the electric fan.
He picked up his glass and drained it feverishly, overlooking the fact that it hadn’t anything in it.
Jeeves
The moment I saw the man standing there, registering respectful attention, a weight seemed to roll off my mind. I felt like a lost child who spots his father in the offing. There was something about him that gave me confidence.
Jeeves is a tallish man, with one of those dark, shrewd faces. His eye gleams with the light of pure intelligence.
Lady Malvern tried to freeze him with a look, but you can’t do that sort of thing to Jeeves. He is look-proof.
Books & Boots 