Bertie Wooster Fictional biography What is the name of the fictional biography I don't know.
Was Bertie Wooster a character of a fictional biography
Was Bertie Wooster a character of a fictional biography
Bertie Wooster and his friend Bingo Little were born in the same village only a few days apart. Bertie's middle name, "Wilberforce", is the doing of his father, who won money on a horse named Wilberforce in the Grand National the day before Bertie's christening and insisted on his son carrying that name. The only other piece of information given about Bertie's father, aside from the fact that he had numerous relatives, is that he was a great friend of Lord Wickhammersley of Twing Hall. Bertie refers to his father as his "guv'nor". When he was around seven years of age, Bertie was sometimes compelled to recite "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for guests by his mother; she proclaimed that he recited nicely, but Bertie disagrees, and says that he and others found the experience unpleasant. Bertie also mentions reciting other poems as a child, including "Ben Battle" and works by poet Walter Scott. Like Jeeves, Bertie says that his mother thought him intelligent. Bertie makes no other mention of his mother, though he makes a remark about motherhood after being astounded by a friend telling a blatant lie: "And this, mark you, a man who had had a good upbringing and had, no doubt, spent years at his mother's knee being taught to tell the truth". When Bertie was eight years old, he took dancing lessons (alongside Corky Potter-Pirbright, sister of Bertie's friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright). It is established throughout the series that Bertie is an orphan who inherited a large fortune at some point, although the exact details and timing of his parents' deaths are never made clear. CANNOTANSWER
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Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligence manages to save Bertie or one of his friends from numerous awkward situations. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves have been described as "one of the great comic double-acts of all time".

Bertie is the narrator and central figure of most of the Jeeves short stories and novels. The two exceptions are the short story "Bertie Changes His Mind" (1922), which is narrated by Jeeves, and the novel Ring for Jeeves (1953), a third-person narration in which Bertie is mentioned but does not appear. First appearing in "Extricating Young Gussie" in 1915, Bertie is the narrator of ten novels and over 30 short stories, the last being the novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, published in 1974.

Inspiration

The Wodehouse scholar Norman Murphy believes George Grossmith Jr. to have been the inspiration for the character of Bertie Wooster. Others have asserted John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley was the inspiration. P. G. Wodehouse was a distant cousin of John Wodehouse. He was also the godfather to Wodehouse's son, John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley.

The Wodehouse character Reggie Pepper was an early prototype of Bertie Wooster.

Fictional biography

Early life

Bertie Wooster and his friend Bingo Little were born in the same village only a few days apart. Bertie's middle name, "Wilberforce", is the doing of his father, who won money on a horse named Wilberforce in the Grand National the day before Bertie's christening and insisted on his son carrying that name. The only other piece of information given about Bertie's father, aside from the fact that he had numerous relatives, is that he was a great friend of Lord Wickhammersley of Twing Hall. Bertie refers to his father as his "guv'nor".

When he was around seven years of age, Bertie was sometimes compelled to recite "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for guests by his mother; she proclaimed that he recited nicely, but Bertie disagrees, and says that he and others found the experience unpleasant. Bertie also mentions reciting other poems as a child, including "Ben Battle" and works by Walter Scott. Like Jeeves, Bertie says that his mother thought him intelligent. Bertie makes no other mention of his mother, though he makes a remark about motherhood after being astounded by a friend telling a blatant lie: "And this, mark you, a man who had had a good upbringing and had, no doubt, spent years at his mother's knee being taught to tell the truth".

When Bertie was eight years old, he took dancing lessons (alongside Corky Potter-Pirbright, sister of Bertie's friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright). It is established throughout the series that Bertie is an orphan who inherited a large fortune at some point, although the exact details and timing of his parents' deaths are never made clear.

Education

Bertie Wooster's early education took place at the semi-fictional Malvern House Preparatory School, headed by Rev. Aubrey Upjohn, whom he meets again in Jeeves in the Offing. (Wodehouse himself attended a school by that name, in Kearsney, Kent, but the Malvern House that appears in the stories is in the fictional town of Bramley-on-Sea.) At Malvern House, Bertie's friends called him "Daredevil Bertie", though Upjohn and others called him "Bungling Wooster".

One detail of Bertie's Malvern House life that comes into several stories is his winning of the prize for scripture knowledge. Bertie speaks with pride of this achievement on several occasions, but in Right Ho, Jeeves, his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, while intoxicated, publicly accuses Bertie of having won the award by cheating. Bertie stoutly denies this charge, however, and on the same occasion, Gussie makes other completely groundless accusations against other characters. Despite his pride over his accomplishment, Bertie does not remember precisely what the prize was, simply stating that it was "a handsomely bound copy of a devotional work whose name has escaped me".

Bertie once won a prize at private school for the best collection of wildflowers made during the summer holidays. When Bertie was fourteen, he won the Choir Boys' Handicap bicycle race at a local school treat, having received half a lap start.

After Malvern House, Bertie was further educated at the non-fictional Eton and at Magdalen College, Oxford. At Oxford he was a Rackets Blue.

Bertie is a member of the Drones Club, and most of his friends and fellow Drones members depicted in the stories attended one or both of these institutions with him. It was at Oxford that he first began celebrating the night of the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge. Though ordinarily he drinks in moderation, Bertie says he is "rather apt to let myself go a bit" on Boat Race night, typically drinking more than usual and making mischief with his old school friends. Specifically, Bertie and others tend to celebrate the occasion by stealing a policeman's helmet, though they often get arrested as a result. London magistrates are aware of this tradition and tend to be lenient towards Bertie when he appears in court the morning after the Boat Race, generally only imposing a fine of five pounds; while this would have constituted a significant amount of money for many people at the time, Bertie has no trouble paying it.

The stories
The Jeeves canon is set in a floating timeline (with each story being set at the time when it was written though the characters do not age), in an idealized world where wars are downplayed or not mentioned. Certain Edwardian era elements, such as traditional gentlemen's clubs like the Drones Club, continue to be prevalent throughout the stories.

With a few exceptions, the short stories were written first, followed by the novels. The saga begins chronologically in the short story "Jeeves Takes Charge", in which Bertie Wooster first hires Jeeves. Bertie and Jeeves usually live at Berkeley Mansions, though they also go to New York and numerous English country houses. Throughout the short stories and novels, Bertie tries to help his friends and relatives, but ends up becoming entangled in trouble himself, and is ultimately rescued by Jeeves. Typically, Bertie has a new piece of clothing or item that Jeeves disapproves of, though Bertie agrees to relinquish it at the end of the story.

Almost always narrating the story, Bertie becomes involved in many complex and absurd situations. He appears in the one short story he does not narrate, "Bertie Changes His Mind", and does not make an appearance in Ring for Jeeves, though he is mentioned. An important story for Bertie is "Clustering Round Young Bingo", in which Bertie writes an article titled "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing" for his Aunt Dahlia's weekly magazine, Milady's Boudoir. For his article, Aunt Dahlia paid Bertie a packet of cigarettes. As with his prize for scripture knowledge, Bertie is proud of this article and mentions it many times. Two other events that are particularly significant for Bertie are his short-lived interest in living with his nieces in "Bertie Changes His Mind" and his temporary separation from Jeeves when Bertie refused to stop playing his banjolele in Thank You, Jeeves.

On several occasions, Bertie assumes an alias. After being arrested on Boat Race night, he calls himself Eustace H. Plimsoll when appearing in court (in Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves). He is also brought to court after tripping a policeman in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, and calls himself Ephraim Gadsby. In one scene in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he is said to be a thief named Alpine Joe, which is mentioned again in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen. He also impersonates three other people in different stories, namely Rosie M. Banks in "Jeeves in the Springtime" and "Bingo and the Little Woman", Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley in "Without the Option", and Gussie Fink-Nottle in The Mating Season.

In Ring for Jeeves, set in post-WWII England, Bertie attends a school that teaches the aristocracy basic skills, including boot-cleaning, sock-darning, bed-making and primary-grade cooking. This school does not allow its students to employ valets, so Jeeves cannot follow Bertie there and instead works as a butler for Lord Rowcester. However, Bertie is eventually expelled for cheating after he pays a woman to do his sock darning, and Jeeves returns to his side.

Personal characteristics

Age and appearance

Bertie is approximately 24 years old when he first meets Jeeves in "Jeeves Takes Charge". His age is not stated in any other story. In the reference work Wodehouse in Woostershire by Wodehouse scholars Geoffrey Jaggard and Tony Ring, it is speculated that Bertie's age ranges from approximately 24 to 29 over the course of the stories. Nigel Cawthorne, author of A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster, also suggested that Bertie is approximately 29 at the end of the saga.

Tall and slim, Bertie is elegantly dressed, largely because of Jeeves. He has blue eyes. Normally clean-shaven, he grows a moustache in two different stories, and ultimately loses the moustache, as Jeeves does not think a moustache suits Bertie. It seems that he has an innocent-looking appearance; when Bertie wants to wear an alpine hat in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he states, "I was prepared to concede that it would have been more suitable for rural wear, but against this had to be set the fact that it unquestionably lent a diablerie to my appearance, and mine is an appearance that needs all the diablerie it can get." Bertie has an expressive face that Jeeves can read easily.

In illustrations, Bertie Wooster has frequently been depicted wearing a monocle. However, this is probably merely a stereotypical depiction of an upper-class gentleman, as Bertie does not seem to wear a monocle in the original stories. The only evidence of Bertie wearing a monocle occurs in "The Spot of Art", when Bertie sees a portrait of himself, wearing a monocle, in a poster advertising soup. Bertie is revolted by the image, which gives him a look of "bestial greed". The monocle seems to exaggerate this expression, and Bertie makes fun of how large the monocle looks, calling it "about six inches in circumference". Bertie is never described as wearing a monocle elsewhere. It is unlikely that Bertie would wear a monocle that would not be mentioned, since the glasses of other characters, particularly Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, are well-described, and another prominent Wodehouse character, Psmith, has a distinctive monocle that is mentioned many times.

Personality

Bertie is pleasant and amiable, according to Jeeves. A well-intentioned and honorable young gentleman, he has a strong moral code and prides himself on helping his friends. Unlike his Aunt Agatha, he is not snobbish to servants and is not bothered when one of his pals wants to marry someone from a different social class. He gladly spends time with a variety of people, including rich aristocrats and poor artists.

Tending to be unworldly and naive, Bertie is tricked by con artists in "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count" and "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird", though Jeeves could have warned him earlier on during the former occasion and he was driven by desperation in the latter circumstances; in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, he realizes he is being tricked by a man named Graham, but is unable to avoid paying Graham anyway. He is not interested in global affairs or politics, and advises Jeeves to miss as many political debates as possible in order to live a happy and prosperous life. Usually modest about his intelligence, Bertie states, "I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess", though he occasionally wants to prove his intelligence, for example in "Scoring off Jeeves". He comes up with well-intentioned if ill-advised or unfortunately botched schemes, such as when he decides to kiss Pauline Stoker to spur his friend Chuffy to propose to her in Thank You, Jeeves.

Sometimes, Bertie acts diffidently, giving in to the whims of his formidable aunts or fiancées, but there are also times when Bertie displays a strong will, for example when he attempts to defy Jeeves's wishes on clothing, and when he resolves to confront Aunt Agatha at the end of The Mating Season. Nonetheless, Bertie lacks what Jeeves calls "Presence" and has difficulty presenting himself with authority in front of an audience. On two occasions, Bertie mentions reluctantly playing a part in an amateur theatrical production at a country house, once when roped into playing a butler, and another time when compelled to play King Edward III at his Aunt Agatha's house; for Bertie, both times were a trying ordeal.

By no means an ambitious man, Bertie seeks neither a prestigious job nor a socially advantageous marriage. In his own words, Bertie is the sort of person who is "content just to exist beautifully". He likes living a leisurely, quiet life and appreciates small things in his day, such as the oolong tea (which he sometimes calls Bohea) that Jeeves brings to him every morning.

Hobbies

Bertie participates in a number of physical activities. He likes swimming under ordinary circumstances; he is less fond of it when he falls into water unexpectedly while dressed in regular attire, which occurs multiple times in the stories. He plays tennis with Bingo Little in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom". Bertie also plays golf in the same story. His golf handicap is 16, and he plays in the Drones Club golf tournament every year. At Oxford, he obtained a blue for rackets playing with his friend Harold "Beefy" Anstruther, and briefly went in for rowing under the coaching of Stilton Cheesewright. Later, he rows a boat that Jeeves is steering in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom". Bertie plays squash and was runner-up one year in the Drones Club Annual Squash Handicap. There is no doubt in his mind that he will win the Drones Club darts competition in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. Claiming that he can "out-Fred the nimblest Astaire" Bertie enjoys dancing and likes fancy dress balls.

Capable of reading sheet music, Bertie has a light baritone voice and sings often, most prominently in "Jeeves and the Song of Songs". He keeps a piano in his flat, and once played "Happy Days Are Here Again" with one finger on the piano at Totleigh Towers when there was no other method of self-expression available. In Thank You, Jeeves, he attempts to play the banjolele, apparently with little success despite his enthusiasm. In an early story, Bertie claims that "bar a weekly wrestle with the 'Pink 'Un' and an occasional dip into the form book I'm not much of a lad for reading", yet Bertie is frequently in the middle of reading a mystery or crime novel in later stories. He states that he is never happier than when curled up with the latest Agatha Christie, and regularly references literary characters in mystery and crime fiction, including Christie's Hercule Poirot and others such as Sherlock Holmes, A. J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

Relationships

Jeeves

When Bertie Wooster catches his valet Meadowes stealing his silk socks among other things, he sacks him and sends for another from the agency. Jeeves arrives and mixes Bertie a hangover cure. The cure is remarkably effective, and Bertie engages Jeeves immediately. Thereafter, Bertie happily cedes much of the control of his life to the competent Jeeves, despite the occasional clashes that sometimes occur "when two men of iron will live in close association", according to Bertie. These clashes generally occur because Bertie insists on wearing a new jacket, tie, or some other item that Jeeves disapproves of, though Bertie agrees to give up the item after Jeeves saves him from trouble.

Family
Due to the volume of stories and time span over which Wodehouse wrote them, there are a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in the information given about his relatives.  Bertie and several of his relations appear in the early semi-canonical short story "Extricating Young Gussie". In that story the family name is Mannering-Phipps, not Wooster, and the story has been excluded from most collections of Jeeves and Wooster material, even though the incidents in that story are referenced in later stories.

The family members who make an appearance in the most Jeeves stories are Bertie's Aunt Dahlia (7 short stories, 7 novels) and Aunt Agatha (8 short stories). Aunt Dahlia is friendly and good-natured while Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though both make demands of Bertie. Bertie feels obliged to follow their whims, often getting in trouble doing so. Aunt Dahlia's husband Tom Travers and children Angela and Bonzo Travers play important roles. Spenser Gregson, Aunt Agatha's first husband, does not play a major role, but their son Thomas "Thos" Gregson and later her second husband Percy Craye, Earl of Worplesdon appear in the stories.

Aside from Aunts Dahlia and Agatha, Bertie Wooster's father had other siblings. In "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie's Uncle Cuthbert is described as the "late head of the family", but it is said his son Gussie has no title; Cuthbert's widow is Bertie's Aunt Julia. Another uncle is Uncle Willoughby, upon whom Bertie is initially financially dependent. One of Bertie's uncles, the late Henry Wooster, was the husband of Bertie's Aunt Emily; Claude and Eustace are their twin sons and Bertie's cousins. In "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", Bertie takes a present for another of Aunt Emily's sons, Harold, who has just turned six, but, embarrassed at the relatively inexpensive gift he had bought, Bertie wrenches his Uncle James's card off a toy aeroplane, replacing it with his own. Bertie's Uncle George is Lord Yaxley, so if he inherited that title he is likely to be Bertie's eldest living uncle, and Bertie's paternal grandfather may have held the title as well. However, the relative ages of Bertie's father and remaining uncles are not delineated, so it is unclear whether Bertie or one of his male cousins is in line to inherit the peerage. It is theoretically possible that the title was a life peerage under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, but unlikely as Uncle George is described as having devoted his life to food and drink.

In the story "Bertie Changes His Mind", Bertie mentions a sister who has three daughters, referred to by Jeeves as Mrs Scholfield, though his sister and nieces are not mentioned again.

List of relatives
Bertie Wooster has many relatives who appear or are mentioned in the stories. Three other possible relatives (Cuthbert and Julia Mannering-Phipps and their son Gussie) appear or are mentioned in "Extricating Young Gussie", though in this story Bertie's surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps. It is not shown in later stories if the three relatives are renamed Wooster. In his book Who's Who in Wodehouse, Daniel Garrison suggests that the protagonist of "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie Mannering-Phipps, is a prototype of the later Bertie Wooster. Richard Usborne writes that Bertie Wooster does appear in "Extricating Young Gussie" though his last name is Mannering-Phipps in the story. In the book Wodehouse in Woostershire, it is suggested that Bertie's grandmother was married twice, first to a Mannering-Phipps and then to a Wooster with the title Lord Yaxley. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the Mannering-Phipps family, they are listed with asterisks below.

Some marriages occur during the course of the stories. Bertie's uncle Lord Yaxley marries Maud Wilberforce as a result of the events of "Indian Summer of an Uncle", and Bertie's aunt Agatha Gregson marries Lord Worplesdon sometime before the events of Joy in the Morning.

Bertie Wooster's relatives include:

Fiancées

Bertie never marries, but frequently finds himself engaged. In an early story he attempts to become engaged to Gwladys Pendlebury, an artist who paints Bertie's portrait. In the early years, he is rather given to impulsive and short-lived infatuations, under the influence of which he proposes to Florence Craye (in "Jeeves Takes Charge", the fourth story in terms of publication and the first in the internal timeline of the books), to Pauline Stoker, and to Bobbie Wickham. In all of these cases, he rethinks the charms of the holy state and a "lovely profile" upon closer understanding of the personalities of the women in question.  Having already received a proposal from him, each woman assumes that she has an open invitation to marry Bertie whenever she has a spat with her current fiancé. Madeline Bassett and Honoria Glossop suffer from a similar delusion, though in each of their cases Bertie was attempting to plead the case of a friend (Gussie Fink-Nottle and Bingo Little respectively) but was misinterpreted as confessing his own love. In all of these cases, Bertie, who aims to be an honorable preux chevalier (valiant knight), feels he has to agree to the marriage, and relies on Jeeves to somehow end the engagement. In the later stories and novels, Bertie regards engagement solely as a dire situation from which Jeeves must extricate him. In the last novel, Bertie acknowledges that his infatuations have all been short-lived.

In Thank You, Jeeves, Bertie states that he is glad he did not marry Pauline Stoker because she is "one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis", and adds that his ideal wife should be, in contrast to the dynamic Pauline, "something rather more on the lines of Janet Gaynor". However, later in the same novel, Jeeves tells Pauline that he doubts a union between her and Bertie would have been successful as Bertie is "essentially one of Nature's bachelors".

Though Jeeves frequently rescues Bertie from unwanted engagements, only rarely do they openly discuss the matter, as they both feel it would be unseemly to "bandy a woman's name" in such a way.

Of the women Bertie Wooster becomes engaged to, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are Madeline Bassett (5 novels), Lady Florence Craye (1 short story, 3 novels), Bobbie Wickham (3 short stories, 1 novel), and Honoria Glossop (4 short stories).

Friends

Bertie is loyal to his friends, willing to do whatever he can to solve their problems, saying "when there is a chance of helping a pal we Woosters have no thought of self". This has led to problems for him, since he is regularly drawn into troublesome tasks. Though he continues to provide help, Bertie is aware that people do not hesitate to give him unpleasant jobs; as he says, "Whenever something sticky was afoot and action had to be taken the cry was sure to go up, 'Let Wooster do it.'" Bertie's friends are eager to ask for advice from Jeeves, who enjoys helping Bertie's pals. Jeeves essentially runs a "big Mayfair consulting practice" from their home, and Bertie is accustomed to his acquaintances consulting Jeeves directly without talking to him first. Sometimes Bertie tries to assert that he can also solve problems, but truly he thinks of Jeeves as a genius as much as everyone else does.

Among Bertie's friends, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are Bingo Little (10 short stories), Gussie Fink-Nottle (4 novels), and Tuppy Glossop (3 short stories, 1 novel). Others include Rev. Harold P. "Stinker" Pinker, Claude "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright, Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley, and Rockmetteller "Rocky" Todd. Sometimes a friend or acquaintance will become a jealous antagonist, for example G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright.

Some pals of Bertie's are occasionally mentioned who do not play major roles in the Jeeves stories, including Freddie Widgeon, Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, and Oofy Prosser. Many Drones Club members appear in the separate Wodehouse Drones Club stories. Bertie is acquainted with Lord Emsworth, another of Wodehouse's best-known characters, who appears in the Blandings Castle stories. Bertie also knows Lord Emsworth's son Freddie Threepwood.

Adversaries

Bertie encounters a number of adversaries who are suspicious of him or threaten him in some way. These individuals are often quick to misinterpret Bertie's actions, which may seem strange due to the bizarre situations he becomes involved in, and come to the conclusion that Bertie is somehow mentally unsound or that he is a thief.

Among Bertie's various adversaries, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are the "nerve specialist" or "loony doctor" Sir Roderick Glossop (4 short stories, 2 novels), and the intimidating "amateur dictator" Roderick Spode (4 novels), though Sir Roderick Glossop later becomes Bertie's friend. Other antagonists include Sir Watkyn Bassett and Major Plank.

Language
With two exceptions, the stories are told in the first person by Bertie Wooster. Although Jeeves occasionally describes Bertie as "mentally negligible", Bertie's narrative style reflects notable facility with the English language. He displays what would be considered by today's standards a broad, if not very deep, knowledge of English literature, making allusions from sources including the Bible, Shakespeare, and romantic literature of the 19th century (all of these references typical of the schooling he and his 20th-century audience received), even if he relies on Jeeves to complete quotations for him. Bertie frequently applies these serious references in an over-simplified, farcical manner to the situation he is in, or uses the reference in a way totally contrary to its original context and meaning. In one story, Bertie complains about the constant attentions of a woman in whom he has no interest by referring to her as "young Sticketh-Closer-Than-a-Brother" in an annoyed fashion. The verse (Proverbs 18:24) that Bertie partially quotes actually praises the value of close friendship when it refers to a "friend that sticketh closer than a brother".

Bertie is fond of pre-World War I slang, peppering his speech with words and phrases such as "what ho!", "pipped", "bally" and so on, and he informally abbreviates words and phrases, such as "eggs and b" (eggs and bacon). He uses exaggerated imagery, and throughout the stories, he almost never says the word "walk", instead using terms and phrases like "toddle", "stagger", "ankle", "leg it", "make tracks", "whoosh" and "whizz". His informal language is juxtaposed with advanced vocabulary; Bertie claims that over the years, he has picked up a vocabulary of sorts from Jeeves. As the years pass, he makes references to popular film and literature that would have been well known to readers when the books were written.

One literary device Bertie employs is the transferred epithet, using an adjective to modify a noun instead of using the corresponding adverb to modify the verb of the sentence. Examples of this include "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar on the teaspoon" and "He waved a concerned cigar". He also favours the mixed metaphor, an absurd combination of two incompatible metaphors. For example, after one of Bertie's plans goes awry, he decides not to dwell on his mistake, saying "spilt milk blows nobody any good"; this combines the proverbs "It's no use crying over spilt milk" and "It's an ill wind that blows no good". Bertie also uses running gags, making humorous statements and recalling them later within the same story and in other stories.

Adaptations

 Television 
 Ian Carmichael played the part of Bertie Wooster (opposite Dennis Price as Jeeves) in the BBC television series, The World of Wooster (1965–1967).
 Jonathan Cecil (who, like Bertie himself, was an Old Etonian) played him in the BBC tribute film Thank You, P. G. Wodehouse (1981), with Michael Aldridge as Jeeves.
 Hugh Laurie (also an Old Etonian) portrayed Bertie Wooster in the early-1990s ITV series Jeeves and Wooster opposite his long-time comedy partner, Stephen Fry, as Jeeves and has been widely acclaimed as "the definitive portrayal of Jeeves & Wooster". While Bertie's character is largely faithful to his character in the canon, Bertie is also depicted as being a capable pianist and singer, making use of actor-musician Hugh Laurie's musical talents. He plays and sings show tunes and popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, including the songs "Nagasaki", "Forty-Seven Ginger-Headed Sailors", "Puttin' on the Ritz", "Minnie the Moocher" and "You Do Something to Me". In the original stories, Bertie sings often and is said to have a pleasant "light baritone voice", and can read sheet music, though it is unclear to what extent he plays piano. In the episode "The Delayed Arrival", Bertie crossdresses and assumes an alias when he briefly pretends to be a maid named "Beryl" employed in the Travers household, Brinkley Court. This did not occur in the original novel on which the episode was based, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit.

 Film
 David Niven was the first, and to date the only actor to play Bertie Wooster in a mainstream theatrical film, in Thank You, Jeeves! (1936). This film bore almost no resemblance to Wodehouse's fiction. Bertie was portrayed as woman-chaser, the opposite of the more common situation in the stories, in which Bertie strives to avoid marriage entanglements. Jeeves (Arthur Treacher) seemed more of a pompous prig than a brilliant helper. Notably, when Bertie grows a moustache that Jeeves disapproves of in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Bertie cites Niven's moustache as a justification. A follow-up film, Step Lively, Jeeves (1937), did not feature Bertie Wooster as a character.

 Radio 
 "Leave It to Jeeves" (1940) was a radio drama broadcast on CBS's Forecast series. Edward Everett Horton portrayed Bertie Wooster and Alan Mowbray portrayed Jeeves.
 Naunton Wayne portrayed Bertie Wooster in a 1955 radio drama based on Right Ho, Jeeves broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, with Deryck Guyler as Jeeves.
 Terry-Thomas played Bertie Wooster opposite Roger Livesey as Jeeves in a dramatisation of "Indian Summer of an Uncle" and  "Jeeves Takes Charge" released as a record album in 1958.
 Richard Briers portrayed Bertie Wooster in the BBC Radio 4 series What Ho, Jeeves! opposite Michael Hordern as Jeeves. The series ran occasionally from 1973 to 1981.
 Simon Cadell played Bertie Wooster opposite David Suchet as Jeeves in the BBC Saturday Night Theatre radio adaptation of Right Ho, Jeeves in 1988.
 Mark Richard portrayed Bertie Wooster with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves in a 1997 L.A. Theatre Works dramatisation of The Code of the Woosters. Simon Templeman played Bertie Wooster with Paxton Whitehead as Jeeves in the same organisation's 1998 recording of an adaptation of Thank You, Jeeves.
 Marcus Brigstocke played Bertie Wooster in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Code of the Woosters in 2006, with Andrew Sachs as Jeeves.
 James Callis voiced Bertie Wooster in a 2018 BBC adaptation of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves.

 Audiobooks  
 Audiobooks of many of the Jeeves stories and novels in which Bertie Wooster is the narrator have been recorded by British actors, including Simon Callow, Jonathan Cecil, Ian Carmichael, Martin Jarvis, Frederick Davidson, and Dinsdale Landen.
 In 2020, Audible released the first volume of their P.G Wodehouse collection. This volume contains the books The Inimitable Jeeves, Carry On Jeeves, Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters and Joy in the Morning. They are narrated by Stephen Fry.

Stage
 The 1975 musical Jeeves opened with David Hemmings as Bertie Wooster, and Michael Aldridge as Jeeves.
 By Jeeves, the 1996 rewrite of the previous musical, opened with Steven Pacey as Bertie Wooster, and Malcolm Sinclair as Jeeves. In the 2001 recording, John Scherer portrayed Bertie Wooster, with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves.
 The play Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense opened in 2013 with Stephen Mangan as Bertie Wooster and Matthew Macfadyen as Jeeves.

Literature
In the fictional biography Jeeves: A Gentleman's Personal Gentleman by Northcote Parkinson, Bertie Wooster comes into the title of Lord Yaxley on the death of his uncle George, marries Bobbie Wickham and makes Jeeves the landlord of the Angler's Rest pub, which is on the Yaxley estate. Jeeves then supplants Mr Mulliner as the resident expert and storyteller of the pub.
 In Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Bertie Wooster appears in the segment What Ho, Gods of the Abyss? which comically mixes elements of Wodehouse with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Bertie blithely recounts the arrival of a Mi-go to Brinkley Court and Aunt Dahlia's possession by Cthulhu. The Lovecraftian menaces are driven off by Jeeves with the assistance of Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Carnacki and Orlando but not before Gussie Fink-Nottle's brain is surgically removed (a condition that, in the end, causes no real difference in his behaviour). Throughout the events, Bertie remains unaware of the true nature of the goings-on.
 Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, a Jeeves novel by Sebastian Faulks narrated by Bertie Wooster, was published in 2013. It was authorized by the Wodehouse estate. The audiobook was narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt.
 The novel Jeeves and the King of Clubs was written by Ben Schott and published in 2018 with the authorization of the Wodehouse estate. The audiobook was narrated by James Lance. Schott wrote a sequel titled Jeeves and the Leap of Faith, which was published in 2020. The audiobook for Jeeves and the Leap of Faith was narrated by Daniel Ings.

See also
 List of Jeeves characters, an alphabetical list of Jeeves characters
 List of P. G. Wodehouse characters in the Jeeves stories, a categorized outline of Jeeves characters

References
Notes

Bibliography

External links
The Wodehouse Society's page
The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)
BBC's World of Wooster (March 2007 Archive.org cache) at the BBC Comedy Guide (down )
ITV's Jeeves and Wooster (March 2007 Archive.org cache) at the BBC Comedy Guide (down )

Fictional gamblers
Fictional gentry
Fictional golfers
Fictional musicians
Fictional people educated at Eton College
Fictional socialites
Fictional University of Oxford people
Literary characters introduced in 1915
Male characters in literature
Orphan characters in literature
P. G. Wodehouse characters
The following is a list of recurring and notable fictional characters featured in the Jeeves novels and short stories by P. G. Wodehouse.

Anatole 
Anatole is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being the supremely skilled French chef of Aunt Dahlia at her country house Brinkley Court. He is mentioned in many of the stories and is often praised as "God's gift to the gastric juices".  A small, rotund man, Anatole has a large moustache; Bertie Wooster notes that the ends of Anatole's moustache turn up when he is happy and droop when he is upset. Originally from Provence, Anatole speaks English with a mixed fluency, having learned much of his English from Bingo Little and an American chauffeur from Brooklyn.

Anatole previously worked for the Littles but entered Aunt Dahlia's employment in "Clustering Round Young Bingo". The only cook known to be able to make food that agrees with Tom Travers's digestion, he was relied on to such an extent that Tom Travers postponed a Mediterranean trip because Anatole was ill with influenza in "The Spot of Art". Anatole is described as being temperamental, to the point of nearly resigning in Right Ho, Jeeves when several people at the dinner table push his food away in bids to catch their loved ones' attention.

Many characters esteem Anatole's cooking and try to hire him away from the Travers household, including Jane Snettisham ("The Love That Purifies"), Sir Watkyn Bassett (The Code of the Woosters), and Mrs. Trotter (Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit). In Much Obliged, Jeeves, Bertie comments that Anatole suffers from mal au foie (liver problems) and is apt to discuss the subject at length.

Rosie M. Banks

Rosie M. Banks is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being an author who writes romance novels. She also appears in Drones Club stories outside the Jeeves canon. She is married to Bingo Little.

Madeline Bassett 

Madeline Bassett is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. She is the daughter of Sir Watkyn Bassett and is a rather mushy, sentimental girl. Bertie Wooster is briefly engaged to her.

Watkyn Bassett 
Sir Watkyn Bassett, CBE, is a fictional character who appears in two Jeeves novels. He is the father of Madeline Bassett, and the uncle and guardian of Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng. He wears a pince-nez, and is described as a small man who makes up for his height by wearing clothes that are striking in appearance, including a prismatic checked suit in The Code of the Woosters. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he wears a striking dressing-grown. As Bertie states regarding Bassett, "He was a small man...you got the impression, seeing him, that when they were making magistrates there wasn't enough material left over when they came to him...and for some reason not easy to explain it nearly always happens that the smaller the ex-magistrate, the louder the dressing-grown. His was a bright purple number with yellow frogs, and I am not deceiving my public when I say that it smote me like a blow, rendering me speechless."

When he first meets Bertie Wooster, Sir Watkyn is the magistrate at Bosher Street Police Court. Shortly afterward, he inherits a great deal of money from a distant relative and retires to live in Totleigh Towers, where he is a Justice of the Peace. As a magistrate, Bassett fined Bertie £5 for stealing a policeman's helmet on Boat Race Night, and Bertie thinks that the fortune Sir Watkyn inherited actually derived from pocketing fines while a magistrate. Sir Watkyn is a noted collector of antique silver, and his collection rivals that of Bertie's uncle, Tom Travers. Each tries to obtain the silver cow-creamer in The Code of the Woosters. In that novel, it is mentioned that Sir Watkyn is engaged to a widow named Mrs. Wintergreen. She is the aunt of Sir Watkyn's friend, Roderick Spode, who is often at Totleigh Towers. However, she is not mentioned again. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he obtains a black amber statuette.

In the Jeeves and Wooster television series adapted from Wodehouse's stories, Sir Watkyn is Florence Craye's uncle, which was not the case in the original Jeeves canon.

Biffy Biffen
Charles Edward "Biffy" Biffen is a fictional character who appears in the Jeeves short story, "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy". An absent-minded friend of Bertie Wooster, Biffy is engaged to a woman named Mabel, who is Jeeves's niece.

Rupert Bingley
Rupert Bingley, also known as Brinkley, is a recurring fictional character who appears in two Jeeves novels. He is a smallish man who is thin in his first appearance but has become plump by his second appearance. In his first appearance in Thank You, Jeeves, he is a valet called Brinkley. He has extreme left-wing views and threatens Bertie Wooster. In Much Obliged, Jeeves, Jeeves informs Bertie that his name is Bingley and not Brinkley. By the time of this novel, Bingley has inherited a large sum of money and retired from being a valet. His views become extremely right-wing after he becomes a man of property. He resorts to theft and blackmail to increase his wealth. Bingley is a member of the Junior Ganymede Club and retains his membership after retiring.

As a valet, he was employed at different times by Ginger Winship, L. P. Runkle, and Bertie Wooster.

Mr Blumenfeld
Blumenfeld is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. His name first appears as "Blumenfield" in "Jeeves and the Chump Cyril" (in The Inimitable Jeeves) but is later "Blumenfeld" in "Episode of the Dog McIntosh" (in Very Good, Jeeves). He is an American theatrical manager with a young son. Neither of their first names are stated, though Bertie Wooster jokingly calls Blumenfeld's unfriendly son "Sidney the Sunbeam".

Blumenfeld was inspired by Abraham Lincoln Erlanger, a dictatorial American theatrical producer who produced the 1916 musical Miss Springtime, which Wodehouse contributed to as lyricist. Erlanger employed a twelve-year-old boy to second-guess his creative judgments, on the grounds that this was the mental age of the average Broadway audience; this is similar to Blumenfeld,
who relies on the opinions of his twelve-year-old son for the same reason.

Butterfield
Butterfield is the butler of Totleigh Towers, Sir Watkyn Bassett's country house located in Totleigh-in-the-Wold. Butterfield's first name is not stated in the novels. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster guesses that Butterfield is a hundred and four years old, and Jeeves agrees that he is "well stricken in years". In The Code of the Woosters, while airing Stiffy Byng's dog Bartholomew, Butterfield sees Bertie drop Constable Oates's helmet out of a window and retrieves it. At the end of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Bertie agrees to let Jeeves give Butterfield his blue Alpine hat with a pink feather, which Butterfield thinks will help him court a widowed lady in the village.

Stiffy Byng
Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. The niece and ward of Sir Watkyn Bassett, she initially lives with him in Totleigh Towers. She is short and has blue eyes. She wears a wind-swept hairstyle, and has an Aberdeen terrier named Bartholomew. Stiffy often gets bright ideas that end up making trouble for others, and she is not above using blackmail to induce Bertie Wooster to do errands for her.

In The Code of the Woosters, she is engaged to the Rev. Harold "Stinker" Pinker. She appears with Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves and they have married by Much Obliged, Jeeves.

Stilton Cheesewright 
G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright is a recurring fictional character in two Jeeves novels, being an intermittent but jealous fiancé of Florence Craye and thus a menacing "rival" of Florence's ex-"fiancé" Bertie Wooster (who does not actually want to marry Florence). His nickname is probably derived from Stilton cheese. A member of the Drones Club, Stilton is a hulking chap with a large head compared to a pumpkin and a face that looks like "a slab of pink dough". Stilton went to private school, Eton and Oxford with Bertie. He was Captain of the Boats at Eton and rowed four years for Oxford.

In Joy in the Morning, Stilton was the local policeman at Aunt Agatha's rural village Steeple Bumpleigh and was engaged to Florence Craye who was in residence there. In this novel, Stilton and Florence temporarily end their engagement because she does not want him to be a policeman. They reconcile after Stilton resigns from the police force when the local Justice of the Peace refuses to let him make an arrest. In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, the engagement between Stilton and Florence is threatened because Stilton refuses to grow a moustache and Florence goes to a night club with Bertie. Stilton leaves Florence for good and becomes romantically interested in the novelist Daphne Dolores Morehead.

Stilton is mentioned in Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin: "Strong language was no novelty to [Monty] – he had once been present when somebody had slammed a car door on the finger of D'Arcy ('Stilton') Cheesewright of the Drones".

In the television series Jeeves and Wooster, Daphne Dolores Morehead does not appear but is impersonated by Jeeves in drag. Stilton falls in love with this "Daphne Dolores Morehead", and is never made aware that this was actually Jeeves and not the real Morehead in the episode. Stilton goes to New York City at the end of the episode, having heard that Daphne Dolores Morehead lives there.

Lord Chuffnell 
Marmaduke, Lord Chuffnell, nicknamed Chuffy, is a fictional character in the Jeeves novel, Thank You, Jeeves. He went to private school, Eton and Oxford with Bertie Wooster. Chuffy is a Drones Club member. He becomes engaged to Pauline Stoker, and they have married by Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

Chuffy's aunt, Myrtle, Dowager Lady Chuffnell, appears in Thank You, Jeeves. She has a young son, Seabury, and is romantically involved with Sir Roderick Glossop. Her engagement to Glossop is threatened but saved in "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird".

In the television series Jeeves and Wooster, Myrtle is Chuffy's sister, Mrs Pongleton, and her son Seabury is therefore Chuffy's nephew.

Clementina
Clementina is a fictional character in the Jeeves short story, "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina". She is Bobbie Wickham's cousin.

Edwin Craye
Edwin Craye is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. The fourteen-year-old son of Lord Worplesdon and younger brother of Lady Florence Craye, he is a bothersome Boy Scout who seeks to perform "daily acts of kindness", though he is more concerned with performing daily acts than actually being helpful. He always causes trouble for others with his meddlesome actions, especially after he has fallen behind with his daily acts of kindness and is trying to catch up. He appears in "Jeeves Takes Charge" and Joy in the Morning.

A prototype of Edwin Craye appears in the Reggie Pepper story "Disentangling Old Percy". This early version of Edwin is a meek adult. He has the title Lord Weeting in the British edition of the story.

Florence Craye

Lady Florence Craye is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being the beautiful, intellectual and serious daughter of Percy Craye, Lord Worplesdon.

A novelist, in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954), she is engaged to Oxford-educated muscular ex-policeman G. D'Arcy Cheesewright.

Gussie Fink-Nottle

Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is a teetotaller and studies newts.

Boko Fittleworth 
George Webster "Boko" Fittleworth is a fictional character in a Jeeves novel, being an author with a unique dress sense, a member of the Drones Club, and a good friend of Bertie Wooster. In Joy in the Morning, even the normally unflappable Jeeves was strongly affected at the sight of Boko, who dresses "like a tramp cyclist". According to Bertie, after Jeeves first saw him, Jeeves winced and tottered off to the kitchen, probably to pull himself together with cooking sherry. Boko is engaged to Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood. He once shared a flat with Harold "Ginger" Winship and employed Magnolia Glendennon as his stenographer, as mentioned in Much Obliged, Jeeves.

Tuppy Glossop

Hildebrand "Tuppy" Glossop is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. The nephew of Sir Roderick Glossop, Tuppy is a Drones Club member and the fiancé of Bertie Wooster's cousin, Angela Travers.

Honoria Glossop

Honoria Glossop is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. She is the athletic and brainy daughter of Sir Roderick Glossop.

Lady Glossop
Lady Glossop is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being the wife of well known nerve specialist Sir Roderick Glossop, mother to Oswald and Honoria, and an acquaintance of Bertie's fearsome Aunt Agatha. She is mentioned but does not appear in the stories, and dies before the events of Thank You, Jeeves.

In the first and second seasons of the television series Jeeves and Wooster, Lady Glossop makes appearances, and entertains as much suspicion of Bertie's sanity as her husband. In the fourth season, Jeeves instead states to Bertie that Lady Glossop eloped with a bus conductor, and also says that Sir Roderick was anxious to remarry.

Roderick Glossop

Sir Roderick Glossop is a recurring fictional character in the comic novels of P. G. Wodehouse. He is the father of Oswald and Honoria, as well as the uncle of Tuppy Glossop. Sometimes referred to as "the noted nerve specialist" or "the loony doctor", he is a practitioner of psychiatry. He also appears in a Blandings Castle novel outside the Jeeves canon.

Percy Gorringe 
Percy Gorringe is a fictional character in a Jeeves novel, being a side-whiskered poet and writer, the stepson of newspaper owner Mr Trotter and the son of Mrs Trotter. He gets engaged to Florence Craye and is intent on producing her novel Spindrift as a play in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, but is dumped by Florence after the play is a flop, as mentioned in Much Obliged, Jeeves. He writes mystery novels under the name Rex West.

Agatha Gregson

Agatha Gregson (née Wooster, later Lady Worplesdon) is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being Bertie Wooster's fearsome Aunt Agatha and mother of Thomas "Thos" Gregson.

Thomas Gregson
Thomas "Thos" (sometimes written Thos.) Gregson is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. The troublesome son of Agatha Gregson and her first husband Spenser Gregson, he first appears in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom", in which he is being tutored by Bingo Little. His next appearance is in "The Love That Purifies". In this story, he is stated to be fourteen years old. In the novel The Mating Season, he procures the cosh that ultimately ends up in Jeeves's possession. Bertie mentions reluctantly taking his cousin Thos to the theatre at the request of his Aunt Agatha in several stories.

Francis Heppenstall
The Reverend Francis Heppenstall is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is the vicar at the village church at Twing. He is one of the entries in "The Great Sermon Handicap", manages the annual village school treat in "The Purity of the Turf", and is the uncle of Mary Burgess in "The Metropolitan Touch". He also has two sons.

Kipper Herring 
Reginald "Kipper" Herring is a fictional character in a Jeeves novel, being a childhood friend of Bertie Wooster from Malvern House. In Jeeves in the Offing, Kipper is employed as a journalist at the Thursday Review, in which capacity he writes a scathing review of a book on preparatory schools by his former headmaster Aubrey Upjohn. He is engaged to the mischievous Bobbie Wickham.

Jeeves

Reginald Jeeves, usually referred to as Jeeves, is a recurring fictional character in the eponymous stories, being the valet of Bertie Wooster.

Bingo Little

Richard P. "Bingo" Little is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. A member of the Drones Club and a close friend of Bertie Wooster, Bingo often falls in love in the early stories. Bingo also appears in Drones Club stories outside the Jeeves canon.

Mortimer Little
Mortimer Little, later Lord Bittlesham, is a fictional character appearing in the Jeeves semi-novel, The Inimitable Jeeves. He devotes himself almost entirely to eating and is very fat. He is the uncle of Bingo Little, who is dependent upon him for an allowance. In "Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum", Bingo's strategem, suggested by Jeeves, to get his allowance increased backfires by inducing Old Mr. Little to marry his cook, Miss Watson. He acquires the title Lord Bittlesham by the time he appears in "Comrade Bingo", and also appears in "Bingo and the Little Woman".

Daphne Dolores Morehead  
Daphne Dolores Morehead is a fictional character in a Jeeves novel, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. She is a young and attractive blonde bestselling novelist. Blue-eyed and curvaceous, she turned the head of Stilton Cheesewright, making him forget about his ex-fiancée Florence Craye and so-called rival Bertie Wooster. She is probably based on Daphne du Maurier.

In the Jeeves and Wooster television series, Morehead herself does not appear. Instead, she is impersonated by Jeeves.

Constable Oates
Police Constable Eustace Oates is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is a police officer at Totleigh-in-the-Wold. He is bitten by Stiffy Byng's dog Bartholomew and gets his helmet stolen in The Code of the Woosters, and arrests Bertie in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

Gwladys Pendlebury 
Gwladys Pendlebury is a fictional character appearing in the Jeeves short story, "The Spot of Art" (collected in Very Good, Jeeves). A portrait painter, she meets Bertie Wooster at a party in Chelsea. Though Bertie is initially in love with her, she ultimately gets engaged to Lucius Pim, whom she injured with her car. Her portrait of Bertie is used in soup advertisements.

Lucius Pim 
Lucius Pim is a fictional character appearing in the Jeeves short story, "The Spot of Art". He has five brothers and a sister, Beatrice Slingsby. He is an artist and is initially Bertie Wooster's wavy-haired rival for the affections of fellow artist Gwladys Pendlebury. His leg is injured when he is struck by a car driven by Gwladys, and he is brought to recuperate in Bertie's flat by Gwladys's request. Soon enough, he and Gwladys become engaged. Acting as her agent, he obtains a satisfactory price for her portrait of Bertie.

Stinker Pinker 
The Reverend Harold "Stinker" Pinker is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He went to Oxford with Bertie Wooster. He boxed and played rugby football at Oxford, and later played rugby for England. A kindly and muscular individual, he is described by Bertie as being "a large, lumbering Newfoundland puppy of a chap". Stiffy Byng refers to him as an example of Muscular Christianity. He is prone to tripping and knocking over tables. Bertie says that he "had always been constitutionally incapable of walking through the great Gobi desert without knocking something over".

A curate at Totleigh-in-the-Wold, he is engaged to Stiffy Byng in The Code of the Woosters, appears with her again in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves in which he becomes vicar and the prop forward of the local rugby team at Hockley-cum-Meston, and is mentioned as performing well for the team in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen.

Major Plank

Major Plank is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He was called "Barmy" Plank at school. An elderly and square-faced man, he is an explorer who lives in the village of Hockley-cum-Meston, in a house he inherited from his godfather. Devoted to rugby football, he sometimes has memory trouble due to malaria. He sells an amber statuette he obtained in the Congo to Sir Watkyn Bassett and meets the so-called Alpine Joe in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves. He sees Alpine Joe again in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen.

Major Plank may be the Major Brabazon-Plank who appears in the earlier Uncle Fred novel outside the Jeeves canon, Uncle Dynamite.

Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright

Claude Cattermole "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is a West End actor, a member of the Drones Club, and the brother of Cora "Corky" Potter-Pirbright. Catsmeat also appears in Drones Club stories outside the Jeeves canon.

Oofy Prosser

Alexander Charles "Oofy" Prosser is a fictional character mentioned in several Jeeves stories. Being the millionaire member of the Drones Club, he is also a friend of Bertie Wooster. The most wealthy and envied member of the Club, his nickname "Oofy" is British slang for "wealthy".

Oofy Prosser appears briefly in several episodes of the Jeeves and Wooster television series. For instance, he and fellow Drone Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps develop a dance inspired by Gussie Fink-Nottle's demonstration of newt courtship in "The Hunger Strike", and he and Barmy bet each other on how long they can go without smoking, with each trying to smoke in secret in Bertie's flat, in "Will Anatole Return to Brinkley Court?".

Lord Rowcester
Bill Belfry, 9th Earl of Rowcester (pronounced "roaster"), is a fictional character introduced in the novel Ring for Jeeves, in which he is the impoverished owner of the near-derelict Rowcester Abbey in Southmoltonshire. He has a sister, Monica "Moke" Carmoyle, and was a Commando in WWII.

In post-WWII Britain, Jeeves temporarily becomes valet to Lord Rowcester whilst Bertie Wooster is away at a school to teach the wealthy classes how to survive in the wake of social revolution. Lord Rowcester, engaged to be married to Jill Wyvern, wishes to find means of earning money to repair his home and thus sell it off to live a happy married life. At the suggestion of Jeeves, Bill sets up as a bookmaker at horse races under the title of Honest Patch Perkins.

Mrs Scholfield
Mrs. Scholfield is a fictional character who is mentioned in the Jeeves short story "Bertie Changes His Mind". She is sister to Bertie Wooster, and apparently lives or spends some considerable portion of her time in India. She is never given a first name. Bertie and his sister seem to be on good terms, since Bertie considers buying a house where he can live with his sister and her three young daughters.

When asked by Chuffy in Thank You, Jeeves if he has any sisters, Bertie replies in the negative. This may be a continuity error, though Wodehouse scholars have proposed possible explanations for this inconsistency. Bertie may have preferred not to mention his sister since he was trying to convince Chuffy that he had kissed Pauline Stoker in a brotherly manner, Mrs. Scholfield might have passed away somewhere between the short story and the novel, or Bertie simply preferred not to discuss his family with a man who had threatened him with physical harm.

While Mrs. Scholfield does not appear in person in the original Jeeves canon, she was portrayed by actress Barbara French in an episode of The World of Wooster based on "Bertie Changes His Mind".

Seppings
Seppings is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is the butler of Dahlia Travers and Tom Travers at their country house, Brinkley Court. His first name is not given in the stories. He is a dignified and stoic figure, though he has been on friendly terms with Bertie Wooster since Bertie's boyhood. Bertie has enjoyed many a port in his pantry, and they sometimes have conversations, mainly about the weather and Seppings's lumbago. On one occasion, Bertie calls him "Pop Seppings" in a familiar manner.

He is employed alongside the supreme chef Anatole. Like many others, Seppings highly esteems Anatole's cooking. In Right Ho, Jeeves, Bertie describes Seppings when recalling Tuppy pushing away Anatole's cooking at dinner, stating that "Seppings, Aunt Dahlia's butler, a cold, unemotional man, had gasped and practically reeled when Tuppy waved aside those nonnettes de poulet Agnès Sorel". In the same novel, Bertie mentions that Seppings is fond of dances, and Bertie later has trouble getting his attention while Seppings is engrossed in dancing. Seppings makes a brief appearance in The Code of the Woosters, working at the Travers family's town house.

In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Seppings discovers a missing pearl necklace in Jeeves's room, and draws this to Jeeves's attention before reporting it to anyone else. After he does report this, both Seppings and Aunt Dahlia are offended when Mrs Trotter suggests that Seppings stole it. During the events of Jeeves in the Offing, Seppings is away on holiday, at Bognor Regis. When he comes down with a temporary ailment of some sort in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Jeeves serves as Brinkley Court's substitute butler. Seppings suffers a bout of indigestion after eating too much of Anatole's cooking in Much Obliged, Jeeves, though he soon recovers.

Seppings, along with Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, is featured in the play Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (2013).

Charlie Silversmith
Charlie Silversmith is a fictional character who appears in the Jeeves novel, The Mating Season. A large, imposing 16-stone man with a bald head, Silversmith is the austere butler at Deverill Hall. He is Jeeves's uncle and the father of Queenie, who is the parlourmaid at Deverill Hall and engaged to Constable Dobbs. In Much Obliged, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster says that he esteems few men more highly than Jeeves's Uncle Charlie, and when Jeeves is writing a letter to his uncle, Bertie says, "Give Uncle Charlie my love", to which Jeeves replies that he will.

Sippy Sipperley
Oliver Randolph Sipperley, called "Sippy" by Bertie, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. Sippy is a 24-year-old author who is financially dependent on his Aunt Vera. He is initially a freelance author in "Without the Option" but has become editor of The Mayfair Gazette in "The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy". He recommends Jeeves's problem-solving abilities to Gussie Fink-Nottle in Right Ho, Jeeves.

Roderick Spode

Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels. An "amateur dictator", he is aggressive and intimidating. Spode is usually a threat to Bertie Wooster.

Rupert Steggles 
Rupert Steggles is a fictional character in three linked Jeeves short stories in The Inimitable Jeeves. The only son of one of the biggest bookies in London, Steggles is an amateur bookmaker of dubious reputation. He is variously described as ferret-faced and rat-faced, and uses underhanded tactics to ensure that he profits from bookmaking. In "The Great Sermon Handicap", Steggles takes bets on the sermon duration of local clergymen near Twing Hall on a given Sunday. In "The Purity of the Turf", he organizes betting on the events at the Twing village school treat held on the grounds of Twing Hall. In "The Metropolitan Touch", Steggles takes bets on who will win the heart of Mary Burgess.

J. Washburn Stoker
J. Washburn Stoker is a fictional character in the Jeeves novel, Thank You, Jeeves, in which his young son Dwight Stoker and daughter Pauline Stoker also appear. Stoker has another daughter, Emerald Stoker, who appears in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

Rocky Todd
Rockmetteller "Rocky" Todd is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is an American poet. Bertie mentions paying him a visit in "Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest". Rocky seeks help from Bertie and Jeeves in "The Aunt and the Sluggard". Both of these short stories are collected in Carry On, Jeeves.

Angela Travers
Angela Travers is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. She is the daughter of Dahlia Travers and Tom Travers, a cousin of Bertie Wooster, and the fiancée of Tuppy Glossop. She is mentioned in several stories and appears in the novel Right Ho, Jeeves. Bertie is very fond of her. When they were children, she used to call herself his little sweetheart.

Dahlia Travers

Dahlia Travers (née Wooster) is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being Bertie Wooster's bonhomous aunt, as well as the wife of Uncle Tom Travers and the mother of Angela Travers and Bonzo Travers. Aside from Bertie and Jeeves, Aunt Dahlia makes an appearance in more Jeeves stories than any other character, appearing in seven short stories and seven novels.

Tom Travers
Thomas "Tom" Portarlington Travers is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He is the husband of Dahlia Travers and thus Bertie Wooster's uncle. Travers, known to Bertie as Uncle Tom, made a fortune doing business in the Far East. Although reluctant to part with money, especially for income tax, he provides the funds for her rarely profitable magazine Milady's Boudoir, which he refers to as "Madame's Nightshirt". Travers also suffers from severe digestion problems, which are only allayed by the cooking of his French chef Anatole. Tom Travers's hobby is collecting old silver, in which his biggest rival is Sir Watkyn Bassett. Their rivalry forms a major part of the plot of The Code of the Woosters, in which they are both seeking to purchase a rare eighteenth-century cow creamer.

In addition to being mentioned in many stories, Uncle Tom appears in "Clustering Round Young Bingo", Right Ho, Jeeves, and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. Bertie gets a letter from him in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen.

Mr Trotter 
Mr Trotter (Lemuel Gengulphus Trotter) is a fictional character in a Jeeves novel, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. He is a newspaper owner from Liverpool, husband of the domineering Mrs Trotter, and stepfather of her son, the poet Percy Gorringe. Trotter is invited to Aunt Dahlia's country house Brinkley Court to decide on acquiring her literary journal, Milady's Boudoir.

Mrs Trotter 
Mrs Trotter is a fictional character who appears in one Jeeves novel, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, being the domineering and socially ambitious wife of Liverpool newspaper owner Mr Trotter and the mother by a former marriage of poet Percy Gorringe.

Aubrey Upjohn 
The Reverend Aubrey Upjohn is a fictional character who is mentioned in several Jeeves stories and appears in the novel Jeeves in the Offing. He was formerly the stern headmaster of Malvern House Preparatory School, the school attended by Bertie Wooster and several of his friends. Upjohn is 5' 7" tall, though he seemed to be 8' 6" tall to Bertie when Bertie was a child. In Jeeves in the Offing, Upjohn has retired and grown a moustache. He is the widower of Jane Mills, who was a friend of Aunt Dahlia, and stepfather of Jane's daughter Phyllis Mills. He hopes to stand for Parliament as the Conservative candidate in Market Snodsbury. He becomes the target of a libellous article by Kipper Herring. He threatens to initiate a litigation, but Jeeves, as usual, smooths things out. In some books the name of Bertie's headmaster is given as "Arnold Abney", but he appears to be the same person.

Aubrey Upjohn is also a minor Drones Club character. He is the headmaster of St. Asaph's preparatory school in Bramley-on-Sea, which Freddie Widgeon attended in the past, in "Bramley Is So Bracing". In the story, Freddie inadvertently leaves Bingo Little's baby in Upjohn's study. St. Asaph's may be another name for Malvern House.

Upjohn is mentioned in The Code of the Woosters, The Mating Season, and "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird". He is also mentioned in the Drones Club story "The Editor Regrets".

Bobbie Wickham

Roberta "Bobbie" Wickham is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being a redheaded girl enamoured of practical jokes. She also appears in Mr. Mulliner stories and other stories outside the Jeeves canon.

Uncle Willoughby
Uncle Willoughby is a fictional character appearing in the Jeeves short story, "Jeeves Takes Charge". He is Bertie's uncle and resides in Easeby Hall; his surname is not stated. Bertie is initially financially dependent on Willoughby, though this is not true in later works. As he does not appear in later stories, it is speculated that Willoughby passed away and Bertie inherited from him. It is also possible that Willoughby was the trustee of Bertie's inheritance and Bertie obtained full access to his inheritance after reaching a certain age.

Ginger Winship
Harold "Ginger" Winship is a fictional character appearing in the Jeeves novel, Much Obliged, Jeeves. He is a friend of Bertie Wooster and was Bertie's neighbor at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford. He has ginger hair and was a heavyweight boxer for Oxford. At one point, he is engaged to Florence Craye, though he ultimately marries Magnolia Glendennon. His former valet Brinkley was also Bertie's valet for a time when Jeeves had briefly left his service.

Bertie Wooster

Bertram "Bertie" Wooster is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories, being the master of said Jeeves.

Claude and Eustace Wooster 
Claude and Eustace Wooster are fictional characters in the Jeeves semi-novel The Inimitable Jeeves, being the cousins of Bertie Wooster and the twin sons of Henry Wooster and Emily Wooster. They appear in "Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch", "The Great Sermon Handicap" and "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace". They are about half a dozen years younger than Bertie and possessed of high energy levels, able to stay out all night getting into various revelry; much to the dismay of the more subdued Bertie, who considers them "more or less generally admitted to be the curse of the human race". Introduced as students at Oxford, they steal a multitude of items in an effort to join the school's Seekers club - inadvertently breaking up Bertie's engagement to Honoria Glossop - and are later expelled for pouring soda water on the Senior Tutor.  They later ship out to South Africa to join the firm of a family friend at Aunt Agatha's direction.

Emily Wooster 
Emily Wooster is a fictional character mentioned in one Jeeves semi-novel, The Inimitable Jeeves. She is Bertie Wooster's Aunt Emily, the widow of Henry Wooster, and the mother of Claude and Eustace Wooster.

George Wooster
George Wooster, Lord Yaxley, is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He frequents many gentlemen's clubs, and is said to have discovered, well before modern medical thought, that alcohol was a food. He is Bertie's uncle and apparently inherits his title, as he seems unlikely to have earned a title. He eventually marries an ex-barmaid. He plays an important role in "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace" and appears in "Indian Summer of an Uncle".

Henry Wooster 
Henry Wooster is a fictional character mentioned in the Jeeves semi-novel The Inimitable Jeeves, being Bertie Wooster's Uncle Henry, and the brother of Bertie's late father. Though Bertie thought he was extremely decent, Uncle Henry did strange things like keep eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom. He ended up in some sort of home, though his sister, Bertie's Aunt Agatha, claims he was merely eccentric. He died sometime before the stories take place, leaving behind a wife, Emily Wooster, and his twin sons, Claude and Eustace Wooster. 

Uncle Henry's story gives Sir Roderick Glossop concerns about Bertie Wooster's sanity in "Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch". He is likely the same Uncle Henry who gave Bertie the profitable tip that Bertie repeats to an audience of girls in "Bertie Changes His Mind".

Lord Worplesdon 
Percival "Percy" Craye (later Earl of Worplesdon) is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories. He has a daughter, Florence Craye, and a son, Edwin Craye. Lord Worplesdon is also the guardian of Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood. He is a former employer of Jeeves, and later returns to Jeeves for advice. When stirred by a strong emotion, Worplesdon has a tendency to start shouting "What? What? What?" repeatedly. 

He was nearly Agatha Gregson's first husband, though Agatha broke the engagement after he was thrown out of a Covent Garden ball and taken to Vine Street Police Station. After gaining the title Lord Worplesdon, he becomes her second husband and Bertie's Uncle Percy. He once chased the fifteen-year-old Bertie "for five miles across difficult terrain" with a hunting crop, after finding him smoking one of his special cigars. Worplesdon is later amused by the memory and gives one of his cigars to Bertie.

Lord Worplesdon was mentioned in the short story "Jeeves Takes Charge", in which it is stated that he was once thrown out of a music hall with Bertie Wooster's Uncle Willoughby. It is also said in this story that he sat down to breakfast one morning, cried "Eggs! Eggs! Damn all eggs!", and ran out of his house, "never again to return to the bosom of his family" – this incident is never referenced again, however. He later appears in Joy in the Morning, in which he wants to have a clandestine meeting with an American businessman, Chichester Clam. In the same novel, Nobby Hopwood obtains her guardian's permission to marry Boko Fittleworth.

An early version of the character appeared in the Reggie Pepper story, "Disentangling Old Percy". In this story, his first name is not given, though the younger of his two sons is named Percy (in the British edition of the story).

See also

 List of P. G. Wodehouse characters in the Jeeves stories, a categorized outline of characters
 List of P. G. Wodehouse locations, a list of locations including those in the Jeeves stories
 List of Jeeves and Wooster characters, a list of characters in the television series

References
Notes

Sources
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lists of literary characters
Lists of minor fictional characters
Jeeves Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligence manages to save Bertie or one of his friends from numerous awkward situations. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves have been described as "one of the great comic double-acts of all time".

Bertie is the narrator and central figure of most of the Jeeves short stories and novels. The two exceptions are the short story "Bertie Changes His Mind" (1922), which is narrated by Jeeves, and the novel Ring for Jeeves (1953), a third-person narration in which Bertie is mentioned but does not appear. First appearing in "Extricating Young Gussie" in 1915, Bertie is the narrator of ten novels and over 30 short stories, the last being the novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, published in 1974.

Inspiration

The Wodehouse scholar Norman Murphy believes George Grossmith Jr. to have been the inspiration for the character of Bertie Wooster. Others have asserted John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley was the inspiration. P. G. Wodehouse was a distant cousin of John Wodehouse. He was also the godfather to Wodehouse's son, John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley.

The Wodehouse character Reggie Pepper was an early prototype of Bertie Wooster.

Fictional biography

Early life

Bertie Wooster and his friend Bingo Little were born in the same village only a few days apart. Bertie's middle name, "Wilberforce", is the doing of his father, who won money on a horse named Wilberforce in the Grand National the day before Bertie's christening and insisted on his son carrying that name. The only other piece of information given about Bertie's father, aside from the fact that he had numerous relatives, is that he was a great friend of Lord Wickhammersley of Twing Hall. Bertie refers to his father as his "guv'nor".

When he was around seven years of age, Bertie was sometimes compelled to recite "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for guests by his mother; she proclaimed that he recited nicely, but Bertie disagrees, and says that he and others found the experience unpleasant. Bertie also mentions reciting other poems as a child, including "Ben Battle" and works by Walter Scott. Like Jeeves, Bertie says that his mother thought him intelligent. Bertie makes no other mention of his mother, though he makes a remark about motherhood after being astounded by a friend telling a blatant lie: "And this, mark you, a man who had had a good upbringing and had, no doubt, spent years at his mother's knee being taught to tell the truth".

When Bertie was eight years old, he took dancing lessons (alongside Corky Potter-Pirbright, sister of Bertie's friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright). It is established throughout the series that Bertie is an orphan who inherited a large fortune at some point, although the exact details and timing of his parents' deaths are never made clear.

Education

Bertie Wooster's early education took place at the semi-fictional Malvern House Preparatory School, headed by Rev. Aubrey Upjohn, whom he meets again in Jeeves in the Offing. (Wodehouse himself attended a school by that name, in Kearsney, Kent, but the Malvern House that appears in the stories is in the fictional town of Bramley-on-Sea.) At Malvern House, Bertie's friends called him "Daredevil Bertie", though Upjohn and others called him "Bungling Wooster".

One detail of Bertie's Malvern House life that comes into several stories is his winning of the prize for scripture knowledge. Bertie speaks with pride of this achievement on several occasions, but in Right Ho, Jeeves, his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, while intoxicated, publicly accuses Bertie of having won the award by cheating. Bertie stoutly denies this charge, however, and on the same occasion, Gussie makes other completely groundless accusations against other characters. Despite his pride over his accomplishment, Bertie does not remember precisely what the prize was, simply stating that it was "a handsomely bound copy of a devotional work whose name has escaped me".

Bertie once won a prize at private school for the best collection of wildflowers made during the summer holidays. When Bertie was fourteen, he won the Choir Boys' Handicap bicycle race at a local school treat, having received half a lap start.

After Malvern House, Bertie was further educated at the non-fictional Eton and at Magdalen College, Oxford. At Oxford he was a Rackets Blue.

Bertie is a member of the Drones Club, and most of his friends and fellow Drones members depicted in the stories attended one or both of these institutions with him. It was at Oxford that he first began celebrating the night of the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge. Though ordinarily he drinks in moderation, Bertie says he is "rather apt to let myself go a bit" on Boat Race night, typically drinking more than usual and making mischief with his old school friends. Specifically, Bertie and others tend to celebrate the occasion by stealing a policeman's helmet, though they often get arrested as a result. London magistrates are aware of this tradition and tend to be lenient towards Bertie when he appears in court the morning after the Boat Race, generally only imposing a fine of five pounds; while this would have constituted a significant amount of money for many people at the time, Bertie has no trouble paying it.

The stories
The Jeeves canon is set in a floating timeline (with each story being set at the time when it was written though the characters do not age), in an idealized world where wars are downplayed or not mentioned. Certain Edwardian era elements, such as traditional gentlemen's clubs like the Drones Club, continue to be prevalent throughout the stories.

With a few exceptions, the short stories were written first, followed by the novels. The saga begins chronologically in the short story "Jeeves Takes Charge", in which Bertie Wooster first hires Jeeves. Bertie and Jeeves usually live at Berkeley Mansions, though they also go to New York and numerous English country houses. Throughout the short stories and novels, Bertie tries to help his friends and relatives, but ends up becoming entangled in trouble himself, and is ultimately rescued by Jeeves. Typically, Bertie has a new piece of clothing or item that Jeeves disapproves of, though Bertie agrees to relinquish it at the end of the story.

Almost always narrating the story, Bertie becomes involved in many complex and absurd situations. He appears in the one short story he does not narrate, "Bertie Changes His Mind", and does not make an appearance in Ring for Jeeves, though he is mentioned. An important story for Bertie is "Clustering Round Young Bingo", in which Bertie writes an article titled "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing" for his Aunt Dahlia's weekly magazine, Milady's Boudoir. For his article, Aunt Dahlia paid Bertie a packet of cigarettes. As with his prize for scripture knowledge, Bertie is proud of this article and mentions it many times. Two other events that are particularly significant for Bertie are his short-lived interest in living with his nieces in "Bertie Changes His Mind" and his temporary separation from Jeeves when Bertie refused to stop playing his banjolele in Thank You, Jeeves.

On several occasions, Bertie assumes an alias. After being arrested on Boat Race night, he calls himself Eustace H. Plimsoll when appearing in court (in Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves). He is also brought to court after tripping a policeman in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, and calls himself Ephraim Gadsby. In one scene in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he is said to be a thief named Alpine Joe, which is mentioned again in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen. He also impersonates three other people in different stories, namely Rosie M. Banks in "Jeeves in the Springtime" and "Bingo and the Little Woman", Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley in "Without the Option", and Gussie Fink-Nottle in The Mating Season.

In Ring for Jeeves, set in post-WWII England, Bertie attends a school that teaches the aristocracy basic skills, including boot-cleaning, sock-darning, bed-making and primary-grade cooking. This school does not allow its students to employ valets, so Jeeves cannot follow Bertie there and instead works as a butler for Lord Rowcester. However, Bertie is eventually expelled for cheating after he pays a woman to do his sock darning, and Jeeves returns to his side.

Personal characteristics

Age and appearance

Bertie is approximately 24 years old when he first meets Jeeves in "Jeeves Takes Charge". His age is not stated in any other story. In the reference work Wodehouse in Woostershire by Wodehouse scholars Geoffrey Jaggard and Tony Ring, it is speculated that Bertie's age ranges from approximately 24 to 29 over the course of the stories. Nigel Cawthorne, author of A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster, also suggested that Bertie is approximately 29 at the end of the saga.

Tall and slim, Bertie is elegantly dressed, largely because of Jeeves. He has blue eyes. Normally clean-shaven, he grows a moustache in two different stories, and ultimately loses the moustache, as Jeeves does not think a moustache suits Bertie. It seems that he has an innocent-looking appearance; when Bertie wants to wear an alpine hat in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he states, "I was prepared to concede that it would have been more suitable for rural wear, but against this had to be set the fact that it unquestionably lent a diablerie to my appearance, and mine is an appearance that needs all the diablerie it can get." Bertie has an expressive face that Jeeves can read easily.

In illustrations, Bertie Wooster has frequently been depicted wearing a monocle. However, this is probably merely a stereotypical depiction of an upper-class gentleman, as Bertie does not seem to wear a monocle in the original stories. The only evidence of Bertie wearing a monocle occurs in "The Spot of Art", when Bertie sees a portrait of himself, wearing a monocle, in a poster advertising soup. Bertie is revolted by the image, which gives him a look of "bestial greed". The monocle seems to exaggerate this expression, and Bertie makes fun of how large the monocle looks, calling it "about six inches in circumference". Bertie is never described as wearing a monocle elsewhere. It is unlikely that Bertie would wear a monocle that would not be mentioned, since the glasses of other characters, particularly Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, are well-described, and another prominent Wodehouse character, Psmith, has a distinctive monocle that is mentioned many times.

Personality

Bertie is pleasant and amiable, according to Jeeves. A well-intentioned and honorable young gentleman, he has a strong moral code and prides himself on helping his friends. Unlike his Aunt Agatha, he is not snobbish to servants and is not bothered when one of his pals wants to marry someone from a different social class. He gladly spends time with a variety of people, including rich aristocrats and poor artists.

Tending to be unworldly and naive, Bertie is tricked by con artists in "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count" and "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird", though Jeeves could have warned him earlier on during the former occasion and he was driven by desperation in the latter circumstances; in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, he realizes he is being tricked by a man named Graham, but is unable to avoid paying Graham anyway. He is not interested in global affairs or politics, and advises Jeeves to miss as many political debates as possible in order to live a happy and prosperous life. Usually modest about his intelligence, Bertie states, "I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess", though he occasionally wants to prove his intelligence, for example in "Scoring off Jeeves". He comes up with well-intentioned if ill-advised or unfortunately botched schemes, such as when he decides to kiss Pauline Stoker to spur his friend Chuffy to propose to her in Thank You, Jeeves.

Sometimes, Bertie acts diffidently, giving in to the whims of his formidable aunts or fiancées, but there are also times when Bertie displays a strong will, for example when he attempts to defy Jeeves's wishes on clothing, and when he resolves to confront Aunt Agatha at the end of The Mating Season. Nonetheless, Bertie lacks what Jeeves calls "Presence" and has difficulty presenting himself with authority in front of an audience. On two occasions, Bertie mentions reluctantly playing a part in an amateur theatrical production at a country house, once when roped into playing a butler, and another time when compelled to play King Edward III at his Aunt Agatha's house; for Bertie, both times were a trying ordeal.

By no means an ambitious man, Bertie seeks neither a prestigious job nor a socially advantageous marriage. In his own words, Bertie is the sort of person who is "content just to exist beautifully". He likes living a leisurely, quiet life and appreciates small things in his day, such as the oolong tea (which he sometimes calls Bohea) that Jeeves brings to him every morning.

Hobbies

Bertie participates in a number of physical activities. He likes swimming under ordinary circumstances; he is less fond of it when he falls into water unexpectedly while dressed in regular attire, which occurs multiple times in the stories. He plays tennis with Bingo Little in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom". Bertie also plays golf in the same story. His golf handicap is 16, and he plays in the Drones Club golf tournament every year. At Oxford, he obtained a blue for rackets playing with his friend Harold "Beefy" Anstruther, and briefly went in for rowing under the coaching of Stilton Cheesewright. Later, he rows a boat that Jeeves is steering in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom". Bertie plays squash and was runner-up one year in the Drones Club Annual Squash Handicap. There is no doubt in his mind that he will win the Drones Club darts competition in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. Claiming that he can "out-Fred the nimblest Astaire" Bertie enjoys dancing and likes fancy dress balls.

Capable of reading sheet music, Bertie has a light baritone voice and sings often, most prominently in "Jeeves and the Song of Songs". He keeps a piano in his flat, and once played "Happy Days Are Here Again" with one finger on the piano at Totleigh Towers when there was no other method of self-expression available. In Thank You, Jeeves, he attempts to play the banjolele, apparently with little success despite his enthusiasm. In an early story, Bertie claims that "bar a weekly wrestle with the 'Pink 'Un' and an occasional dip into the form book I'm not much of a lad for reading", yet Bertie is frequently in the middle of reading a mystery or crime novel in later stories. He states that he is never happier than when curled up with the latest Agatha Christie, and regularly references literary characters in mystery and crime fiction, including Christie's Hercule Poirot and others such as Sherlock Holmes, A. J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

Relationships

Jeeves

When Bertie Wooster catches his valet Meadowes stealing his silk socks among other things, he sacks him and sends for another from the agency. Jeeves arrives and mixes Bertie a hangover cure. The cure is remarkably effective, and Bertie engages Jeeves immediately. Thereafter, Bertie happily cedes much of the control of his life to the competent Jeeves, despite the occasional clashes that sometimes occur "when two men of iron will live in close association", according to Bertie. These clashes generally occur because Bertie insists on wearing a new jacket, tie, or some other item that Jeeves disapproves of, though Bertie agrees to give up the item after Jeeves saves him from trouble.

Family
Due to the volume of stories and time span over which Wodehouse wrote them, there are a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in the information given about his relatives.  Bertie and several of his relations appear in the early semi-canonical short story "Extricating Young Gussie". In that story the family name is Mannering-Phipps, not Wooster, and the story has been excluded from most collections of Jeeves and Wooster material, even though the incidents in that story are referenced in later stories.

The family members who make an appearance in the most Jeeves stories are Bertie's Aunt Dahlia (7 short stories, 7 novels) and Aunt Agatha (8 short stories). Aunt Dahlia is friendly and good-natured while Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though both make demands of Bertie. Bertie feels obliged to follow their whims, often getting in trouble doing so. Aunt Dahlia's husband Tom Travers and children Angela and Bonzo Travers play important roles. Spenser Gregson, Aunt Agatha's first husband, does not play a major role, but their son Thomas "Thos" Gregson and later her second husband Percy Craye, Earl of Worplesdon appear in the stories.

Aside from Aunts Dahlia and Agatha, Bertie Wooster's father had other siblings. In "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie's Uncle Cuthbert is described as the "late head of the family", but it is said his son Gussie has no title; Cuthbert's widow is Bertie's Aunt Julia. Another uncle is Uncle Willoughby, upon whom Bertie is initially financially dependent. One of Bertie's uncles, the late Henry Wooster, was the husband of Bertie's Aunt Emily; Claude and Eustace are their twin sons and Bertie's cousins. In "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", Bertie takes a present for another of Aunt Emily's sons, Harold, who has just turned six, but, embarrassed at the relatively inexpensive gift he had bought, Bertie wrenches his Uncle James's card off a toy aeroplane, replacing it with his own. Bertie's Uncle George is Lord Yaxley, so if he inherited that title he is likely to be Bertie's eldest living uncle, and Bertie's paternal grandfather may have held the title as well. However, the relative ages of Bertie's father and remaining uncles are not delineated, so it is unclear whether Bertie or one of his male cousins is in line to inherit the peerage. It is theoretically possible that the title was a life peerage under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, but unlikely as Uncle George is described as having devoted his life to food and drink.

In the story "Bertie Changes His Mind", Bertie mentions a sister who has three daughters, referred to by Jeeves as Mrs Scholfield, though his sister and nieces are not mentioned again.

List of relatives
Bertie Wooster has many relatives who appear or are mentioned in the stories. Three other possible relatives (Cuthbert and Julia Mannering-Phipps and their son Gussie) appear or are mentioned in "Extricating Young Gussie", though in this story Bertie's surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps. It is not shown in later stories if the three relatives are renamed Wooster. In his book Who's Who in Wodehouse, Daniel Garrison suggests that the protagonist of "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie Mannering-Phipps, is a prototype of the later Bertie Wooster. Richard Usborne writes that Bertie Wooster does appear in "Extricating Young Gussie" though his last name is Mannering-Phipps in the story. In the book Wodehouse in Woostershire, it is suggested that Bertie's grandmother was married twice, first to a Mannering-Phipps and then to a Wooster with the title Lord Yaxley. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the Mannering-Phipps family, they are listed with asterisks below.

Some marriages occur during the course of the stories. Bertie's uncle Lord Yaxley marries Maud Wilberforce as a result of the events of "Indian Summer of an Uncle", and Bertie's aunt Agatha Gregson marries Lord Worplesdon sometime before the events of Joy in the Morning.

Bertie Wooster's relatives include:

Fiancées

Bertie never marries, but frequently finds himself engaged. In an early story he attempts to become engaged to Gwladys Pendlebury, an artist who paints Bertie's portrait. In the early years, he is rather given to impulsive and short-lived infatuations, under the influence of which he proposes to Florence Craye (in "Jeeves Takes Charge", the fourth story in terms of publication and the first in the internal timeline of the books), to Pauline Stoker, and to Bobbie Wickham. In all of these cases, he rethinks the charms of the holy state and a "lovely profile" upon closer understanding of the personalities of the women in question.  Having already received a proposal from him, each woman assumes that she has an open invitation to marry Bertie whenever she has a spat with her current fiancé. Madeline Bassett and Honoria Glossop suffer from a similar delusion, though in each of their cases Bertie was attempting to plead the case of a friend (Gussie Fink-Nottle and Bingo Little respectively) but was misinterpreted as confessing his own love. In all of these cases, Bertie, who aims to be an honorable preux chevalier (valiant knight), feels he has to agree to the marriage, and relies on Jeeves to somehow end the engagement. In the later stories and novels, Bertie regards engagement solely as a dire situation from which Jeeves must extricate him. In the last novel, Bertie acknowledges that his infatuations have all been short-lived.

In Thank You, Jeeves, Bertie states that he is glad he did not marry Pauline Stoker because she is "one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis", and adds that his ideal wife should be, in contrast to the dynamic Pauline, "something rather more on the lines of Janet Gaynor". However, later in the same novel, Jeeves tells Pauline that he doubts a union between her and Bertie would have been successful as Bertie is "essentially one of Nature's bachelors".

Though Jeeves frequently rescues Bertie from unwanted engagements, only rarely do they openly discuss the matter, as they both feel it would be unseemly to "bandy a woman's name" in such a way.

Of the women Bertie Wooster becomes engaged to, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are Madeline Bassett (5 novels), Lady Florence Craye (1 short story, 3 novels), Bobbie Wickham (3 short stories, 1 novel), and Honoria Glossop (4 short stories).

Friends

Bertie is loyal to his friends, willing to do whatever he can to solve their problems, saying "when there is a chance of helping a pal we Woosters have no thought of self". This has led to problems for him, since he is regularly drawn into troublesome tasks. Though he continues to provide help, Bertie is aware that people do not hesitate to give him unpleasant jobs; as he says, "Whenever something sticky was afoot and action had to be taken the cry was sure to go up, 'Let Wooster do it.'" Bertie's friends are eager to ask for advice from Jeeves, who enjoys helping Bertie's pals. Jeeves essentially runs a "big Mayfair consulting practice" from their home, and Bertie is accustomed to his acquaintances consulting Jeeves directly without talking to him first. Sometimes Bertie tries to assert that he can also solve problems, but truly he thinks of Jeeves as a genius as much as everyone else does.

Among Bertie's friends, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are Bingo Little (10 short stories), Gussie Fink-Nottle (4 novels), and Tuppy Glossop (3 short stories, 1 novel). Others include Rev. Harold P. "Stinker" Pinker, Claude "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright, Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley, and Rockmetteller "Rocky" Todd. Sometimes a friend or acquaintance will become a jealous antagonist, for example G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright.

Some pals of Bertie's are occasionally mentioned who do not play major roles in the Jeeves stories, including Freddie Widgeon, Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, and Oofy Prosser. Many Drones Club members appear in the separate Wodehouse Drones Club stories. Bertie is acquainted with Lord Emsworth, another of Wodehouse's best-known characters, who appears in the Blandings Castle stories. Bertie also knows Lord Emsworth's son Freddie Threepwood.

Adversaries

Bertie encounters a number of adversaries who are suspicious of him or threaten him in some way. These individuals are often quick to misinterpret Bertie's actions, which may seem strange due to the bizarre situations he becomes involved in, and come to the conclusion that Bertie is somehow mentally unsound or that he is a thief.

Among Bertie's various adversaries, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are the "nerve specialist" or "loony doctor" Sir Roderick Glossop (4 short stories, 2 novels), and the intimidating "amateur dictator" Roderick Spode (4 novels), though Sir Roderick Glossop later becomes Bertie's friend. Other antagonists include Sir Watkyn Bassett and Major Plank.

Language
With two exceptions, the stories are told in the first person by Bertie Wooster. Although Jeeves occasionally describes Bertie as "mentally negligible", Bertie's narrative style reflects notable facility with the English language. He displays what would be considered by today's standards a broad, if not very deep, knowledge of English literature, making allusions from sources including the Bible, Shakespeare, and romantic literature of the 19th century (all of these references typical of the schooling he and his 20th-century audience received), even if he relies on Jeeves to complete quotations for him. Bertie frequently applies these serious references in an over-simplified, farcical manner to the situation he is in, or uses the reference in a way totally contrary to its original context and meaning. In one story, Bertie complains about the constant attentions of a woman in whom he has no interest by referring to her as "young Sticketh-Closer-Than-a-Brother" in an annoyed fashion. The verse (Proverbs 18:24) that Bertie partially quotes actually praises the value of close friendship when it refers to a "friend that sticketh closer than a brother".

Bertie is fond of pre-World War I slang, peppering his speech with words and phrases such as "what ho!", "pipped", "bally" and so on, and he informally abbreviates words and phrases, such as "eggs and b" (eggs and bacon). He uses exaggerated imagery, and throughout the stories, he almost never says the word "walk", instead using terms and phrases like "toddle", "stagger", "ankle", "leg it", "make tracks", "whoosh" and "whizz". His informal language is juxtaposed with advanced vocabulary; Bertie claims that over the years, he has picked up a vocabulary of sorts from Jeeves. As the years pass, he makes references to popular film and literature that would have been well known to readers when the books were written.

One literary device Bertie employs is the transferred epithet, using an adjective to modify a noun instead of using the corresponding adverb to modify the verb of the sentence. Examples of this include "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar on the teaspoon" and "He waved a concerned cigar". He also favours the mixed metaphor, an absurd combination of two incompatible metaphors. For example, after one of Bertie's plans goes awry, he decides not to dwell on his mistake, saying "spilt milk blows nobody any good"; this combines the proverbs "It's no use crying over spilt milk" and "It's an ill wind that blows no good". Bertie also uses running gags, making humorous statements and recalling them later within the same story and in other stories.

Adaptations

 Television 
 Ian Carmichael played the part of Bertie Wooster (opposite Dennis Price as Jeeves) in the BBC television series, The World of Wooster (1965–1967).
 Jonathan Cecil (who, like Bertie himself, was an Old Etonian) played him in the BBC tribute film Thank You, P. G. Wodehouse (1981), with Michael Aldridge as Jeeves.
 Hugh Laurie (also an Old Etonian) portrayed Bertie Wooster in the early-1990s ITV series Jeeves and Wooster opposite his long-time comedy partner, Stephen Fry, as Jeeves and has been widely acclaimed as "the definitive portrayal of Jeeves & Wooster". While Bertie's character is largely faithful to his character in the canon, Bertie is also depicted as being a capable pianist and singer, making use of actor-musician Hugh Laurie's musical talents. He plays and sings show tunes and popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, including the songs "Nagasaki", "Forty-Seven Ginger-Headed Sailors", "Puttin' on the Ritz", "Minnie the Moocher" and "You Do Something to Me". In the original stories, Bertie sings often and is said to have a pleasant "light baritone voice", and can read sheet music, though it is unclear to what extent he plays piano. In the episode "The Delayed Arrival", Bertie crossdresses and assumes an alias when he briefly pretends to be a maid named "Beryl" employed in the Travers household, Brinkley Court. This did not occur in the original novel on which the episode was based, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit.

 Film
 David Niven was the first, and to date the only actor to play Bertie Wooster in a mainstream theatrical film, in Thank You, Jeeves! (1936). This film bore almost no resemblance to Wodehouse's fiction. Bertie was portrayed as woman-chaser, the opposite of the more common situation in the stories, in which Bertie strives to avoid marriage entanglements. Jeeves (Arthur Treacher) seemed more of a pompous prig than a brilliant helper. Notably, when Bertie grows a moustache that Jeeves disapproves of in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Bertie cites Niven's moustache as a justification. A follow-up film, Step Lively, Jeeves (1937), did not feature Bertie Wooster as a character.

 Radio 
 "Leave It to Jeeves" (1940) was a radio drama broadcast on CBS's Forecast series. Edward Everett Horton portrayed Bertie Wooster and Alan Mowbray portrayed Jeeves.
 Naunton Wayne portrayed Bertie Wooster in a 1955 radio drama based on Right Ho, Jeeves broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, with Deryck Guyler as Jeeves.
 Terry-Thomas played Bertie Wooster opposite Roger Livesey as Jeeves in a dramatisation of "Indian Summer of an Uncle" and  "Jeeves Takes Charge" released as a record album in 1958.
 Richard Briers portrayed Bertie Wooster in the BBC Radio 4 series What Ho, Jeeves! opposite Michael Hordern as Jeeves. The series ran occasionally from 1973 to 1981.
 Simon Cadell played Bertie Wooster opposite David Suchet as Jeeves in the BBC Saturday Night Theatre radio adaptation of Right Ho, Jeeves in 1988.
 Mark Richard portrayed Bertie Wooster with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves in a 1997 L.A. Theatre Works dramatisation of The Code of the Woosters. Simon Templeman played Bertie Wooster with Paxton Whitehead as Jeeves in the same organisation's 1998 recording of an adaptation of Thank You, Jeeves.
 Marcus Brigstocke played Bertie Wooster in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Code of the Woosters in 2006, with Andrew Sachs as Jeeves.
 James Callis voiced Bertie Wooster in a 2018 BBC adaptation of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves.

 Audiobooks  
 Audiobooks of many of the Jeeves stories and novels in which Bertie Wooster is the narrator have been recorded by British actors, including Simon Callow, Jonathan Cecil, Ian Carmichael, Martin Jarvis, Frederick Davidson, and Dinsdale Landen.
 In 2020, Audible released the first volume of their P.G Wodehouse collection. This volume contains the books The Inimitable Jeeves, Carry On Jeeves, Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters and Joy in the Morning. They are narrated by Stephen Fry.

Stage
 The 1975 musical Jeeves opened with David Hemmings as Bertie Wooster, and Michael Aldridge as Jeeves.
 By Jeeves, the 1996 rewrite of the previous musical, opened with Steven Pacey as Bertie Wooster, and Malcolm Sinclair as Jeeves. In the 2001 recording, John Scherer portrayed Bertie Wooster, with Martin Jarvis as Jeeves.
 The play Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense opened in 2013 with Stephen Mangan as Bertie Wooster and Matthew Macfadyen as Jeeves.

Literature
In the fictional biography Jeeves: A Gentleman's Personal Gentleman by Northcote Parkinson, Bertie Wooster comes into the title of Lord Yaxley on the death of his uncle George, marries Bobbie Wickham and makes Jeeves the landlord of the Angler's Rest pub, which is on the Yaxley estate. Jeeves then supplants Mr Mulliner as the resident expert and storyteller of the pub.
 In Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Bertie Wooster appears in the segment What Ho, Gods of the Abyss? which comically mixes elements of Wodehouse with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Bertie blithely recounts the arrival of a Mi-go to Brinkley Court and Aunt Dahlia's possession by Cthulhu. The Lovecraftian menaces are driven off by Jeeves with the assistance of Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Carnacki and Orlando but not before Gussie Fink-Nottle's brain is surgically removed (a condition that, in the end, causes no real difference in his behaviour). Throughout the events, Bertie remains unaware of the true nature of the goings-on.
 Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, a Jeeves novel by Sebastian Faulks narrated by Bertie Wooster, was published in 2013. It was authorized by the Wodehouse estate. The audiobook was narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt.
 The novel Jeeves and the King of Clubs was written by Ben Schott and published in 2018 with the authorization of the Wodehouse estate. The audiobook was narrated by James Lance. Schott wrote a sequel titled Jeeves and the Leap of Faith, which was published in 2020. The audiobook for Jeeves and the Leap of Faith was narrated by Daniel Ings.

See also
 List of Jeeves characters, an alphabetical list of Jeeves characters
 List of P. G. Wodehouse characters in the Jeeves stories, a categorized outline of Jeeves characters

References
Notes

Bibliography

External links
The Wodehouse Society's page
The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)
BBC's World of Wooster (March 2007 Archive.org cache) at the BBC Comedy Guide (down )
ITV's Jeeves and Wooster (March 2007 Archive.org cache) at the BBC Comedy Guide (down )

Fictional gamblers
Fictional gentry
Fictional golfers
Fictional musicians
Fictional people educated at Eton College
Fictional socialites
Fictional University of Oxford people
Literary characters introduced in 1915
Male characters in literature
Orphan characters in literature
P. G. Wodehouse characters