Jeeves Stories

Editor’s Preface

P. G. Wodehouse was an incredibly prolific writer who sold short stories to various publications around the world for the bulk of his career. His stories were also often anthologized later in larger collections like Carry on Jeeves or The Inimitable Jeeves.

As a result of this practice, variations—sometimes extreme—exist between the published versions of the stories. They were adapted for differences between British and American audiences, titles were changed and, in the case of the anthologies, whole paragraphs were added or deleted to create a more consistent internal flow. Wodehouse was also known to rewrite stories with entirely new characters in order to resell the content. In this anthology we have attempted to include the most recently published versions of the texts that are in the public domain—subsequent versions may indeed have further revisions.

Most of the stories are, despite a paragraph or two, relatively unchanged from their original form. Stories that were split into chapters for publication in The Inimitable Jeeves have been recombined and published under their original titles, with a notable exception being “Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer.” It was originally published in April 1922 in The Strand Magazine as “Aunt Agatha Takes the Count.” Then a few months later, in October 1922, it was republished in Cosmopolitan as “Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer,” having been extensively rewritten and certain key plot elements changed. That version was split to make up two chapters in the 1922 The Inimitable Jeeves: “Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind” and “Pearls Mean Tears.” This revised version is reproduced here, recombined and titled “Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer.”

As many of the later stories are drawn from The Inimitable Jeeves, they are presented in the order they appeared in that volume. The rest are ordered by the date they first appeared in magazine form.

Extricating Young Gussie

She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small hours. It can’t have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me out of the dreamless and broke the news:

“Mrs. Gregson to see you, sir.”

I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed and got into a dressing-gown. I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know that, if she had come to see me, she was going to see me. That’s the sort of woman she is.

She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space. When I came in she looked at me in that darn critical way that always makes me feel as if I had gelatine where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is one of those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must have been something like her. She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson, a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin, Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie’s mother. And, worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating fish, and she has got moral suasion down to a fine point.

I dare say there are fellows in the world—men of blood and iron, don’t you know, and all that sort of thing—whom she couldn’t intimidate; but if you’re a chappie like me, fond of a quiet life, you simply curl into a ball when you see her coming, and hope for the best. My experience is that when Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.

“Halloa, Aunt Agatha!” I said.

“Bertie,” she said, “you look a sight. You look perfectly dissipated.”

I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I’m never at my best in the early morning. I said so.

“Early morning! I had breakfast three hours ago, and have been walking in the park ever since, trying to compose my thoughts.”

If I ever breakfasted at half past eight I should walk on the Embankment, trying to end it all in a watery grave.

“I am extremely worried, Bertie. That is why I have come to you.”

And then I saw she was going to start something, and I bleated weakly to Jeeves to bring me tea. But she had begun before I could get it.

“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. I mean, have you any important engagements in the next week or so?”

I scented danger.

“Rather,” I said. “Heaps! Millions! Booked solid!”

“What are they?”

“I—er—well, I don’t quite know.”

“I thought as much. You have no engagements. Very well, then, I want you to start immediately for America.”

“America!”

Do not lose sight of the fact that all this was taking place on an empty stomach, shortly after the rising of the lark.

“Yes, America. I suppose even you have heard of America?”

“But why America?”

“Because that is where your Cousin Gussie is. He is in New York, and I can’t get at him.”

“What’s Gussie been doing?”