Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our September 2025 buddy read of....



The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)

by

P.G. Wodehouse


All are welcome, come one, come all


In a series of brilliantly plotted episodes, Bertie and Jeeves help Bingo Little with his love-life, as Bingo is involved successively with tea-shop waitress, Mabel; Honoria Glossop (whose laugh sounds like a train going through a tunnel); gold-toothed revolutionary, Charlotte Corday Rowbotham; earl's daughter, Cynthia; vicar's niece, Mary; and Rosie M. Banks, romantic novelist.

While solving these problems, Jeeves also manages to retrieve Aunt Agatha's pearls, keep Cyril Bassington-Bassington off the Broadway stage, fix the Girls' Egg-and-Spoon race, handle the irrepressible Claude and Eustace, and disentangle Bertie's own relationship with the fearsome Honoria. A full comic schedule, then.

Aw, Bingo before Rosie and Tru Lov ❤️

So much to look forward to.

I think about Honoria & her laugh very differently now than I did 40 years ago. Even more after our 2024 presidential campaign and all the snide remarks about VP Harris’ laugh.
What is it about women laughing that m men hate and that activates their ridicule?

G wrote: "What is it about women laughing that m men hate and that activates their ridicule?"

Fear that we're laughing at them? Which, to be fair, we sometimes are!

There's a lot to laugh at

Is this the first Jeeves book?

Susan wrote: "Is this the first Jeeves book?"


It's the first of the novels - although it was not originally conceived as a single narrative as it's assembled from a number of short stories featuring the same characters

The novel combines 11 previously published stories, of which the first six and the last were split in two, to make a book of 18 chapters. It is now often printed in 11 chapters, mirroring the original stories.

All the stories had previously appeared in The Strand Magazine in the UK, between December 1921 and November 1922, except for one, "Jeeves and the Chump Cyril", which had appeared in the Strand in August 1918. That story had appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (US) in June 1918. All the other stories appeared in Cosmopolitan in the US between December 1921 and December 1922.

This was the second collection of Jeeves stories, after My Man Jeeves (1919); the next collection would be Carry On, Jeeves, in 1925.

All of the short stories are connected and most of them involve Bertie's friend Bingo Little, who is always falling in love.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ini...

I might give Jeeves another try then, as I don't seem to have really clicked with Wodehouse before. Do you think it is a good place to start?

Yay, do join us, Susan. Personally, I slightly prefer the Blandings books to Jeeves and Wooster, but I consider PGW a comic genius - this sounds enticing.

It's a solid Wodehouse Susan so if you don't like this one then he's probably not for you


This will be my third read of The Inimitable Jeeves.

Bingo Little's mania for falling in love is the glue which holds these vignettes together. It's a joy, of course.

The Inimitable Jeeves also contains Bertie's very first encounter with Roderick Glossop. As always, when these two meet, there's at least one sublime laugh out loud moment given Glossop quickly comes to believe that Bertie is insane.

If only real life were more like the world of PGW how much happier we'd all be

Good luck Susan - I hope you click this time round

OK, you convinced me. I am pretty sure I have it.

Yessssssss

Nigeyb wrote: "If only real life were more like the world of PGW how much happier we'd all be"

Oh yes, having lunch at the Drones, throwing bread rolls at Oofy Prosser, then going on the toot with Gally in Soho - this is my dream life!

Somehow I didn't notice that we're doing this in September. I just borrowed the audiobook on Friday, because I enjoyed The Code of the Woosters so much I decided to work my way through all the Jeeves titles in order.
As far as I am concerned Jonathan Cecil is an ideal reader for PGW.

Go early G - let us know what you think

I’ll be starting this in the next couple of days

Me too - just what I need after the Eichmann book.

Underway with the first story


Bingo’s in love again which is, inevitably, bad news for Bertie

Good to be back in this world

Nigeyb wrote: "Underway with the first story


Bingo’s in love again which is, inevitably, bad news for Bertie

Good to be back in this world"

I really enjoyed this volume. Possibly not quite as much as The Code of the Woosters, but certainly more than most of the story collections.
I might do the audiobook again, after I finish Eichmann. I've got way too many heavy books underway at the moment.

I love Bingo and have a soft spot for his irascible uncle who cries over those romances. Nice to see where the Little fortune comes from: "Little's Liniment - It Limbers Up the Legs!' So they're 'new money' even though Bertie and Bingo were at Eton together.

I've only read the first story but it transformed my vision of Jeeves now that we know he can 'swing a dashed efficient shoe' on the dancefloor and has a series of girlfriends on the go!

And now that Rosie M. Banks has been mentioned, I'm fingers crossed this is where she and Bingo, meet, love and start cooing at each other.

I’ve not finished the first story yet but remember it well


It is a delight and, as you say, throws new light on Jeeves

I could do with some Little’s Liniment - I’ve done a lot of walking today

If you need limbering, have you tried Tiger Balm?

Good shout. Yes, I have some and might well apply it before tomorrow's Parkrun

This volume once again reminds me that I'm glad that American police officers generally patrol without their caps. One less way for my younger self to have gotten into trouble.
But then I would have considered committing such hijinks sometime between the ages of 12 and 16 while the Clubmen in the Jeeves stories are committing such pranks well into their 20s. The relative immaturity of these clubmen is endearing.
I was also going to add the trait of "benign amorality ' but then considered that most of the Clubmen do abide by a behavior code. Of course, these codes' standards usually have a questionable moral base.

Brian E wrote: "The relative immaturity of these clubmen is endearing."

It is absolutely one of PGW's qualities that he makes his characters comic and endearing - in real life, Eustace and Claude, for example, would be braying upper class twits who I would despise for their mindless privilege. Their moral code derives from this 'superior' social standing.

It seems common in books of this period to make a laughing stock of the police and their uniforms - even in Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. I'm not sure at what stage the police start professionalising? Any ideas?

I know this is early Jeeves and was struck that we get intimations of his feelings for Bertie: Bertie overhears himself described as intellectually lacking (I'm paraphrasing) but amiable - so the well-meaning idiot that we also think him.

There's also quite a lot about the servant network: Jeeves is well-tapped into other 'gentlemens gentlemen' but also cooks, housemaids etc: a whole class of people who Bertie etc. rarely notice but who are given some power, if oblique, in these books. It's perhaps only cooks who are mentioned by name. Which reminds me, does Jeeves cook for Bertie?

Roman Clodia wrote: "I know this is early Jeeves and was struck that we get intimations of his feelings for Bertie: Bertie overhears himself described as intellectually lacking (I'm paraphrasing) but amiable - so the w..."

I thought he did, although mostly breakfast and light suppers plus hangover cures. I think elaborate meals were taken at the club or in restaurants.

Exactly as Alwynne states, he is often rustling up eggs and other breakfast staples for the young master


I’m onto the second story set in Roville-sur-Mer. I recall it well. It has many familiar tropes…. Aunt Agatha foisting a suitable young gal onto Bertie, Jeeves disapproving of some sartorial choice made by BW, and people who may not be all they appear

Cyril Bassington-Bassington eh?


Jeeves and the Chump Cyril is another goodie 🙌🏼

Best line….

“England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons”

Indeed the whole exchange is a great example of PGW’s superb dialogue….


“I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family - the Shropshire Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the Kent Bassington-Bassingtons."
"England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons."
"Tolerably so, sir."
"No chance of a sudden shortage, I mean, what?"
"Presumably not, sir."
"And what sort of a specimen is this one?"
"I could not say, sir, on such short acquaintance."
"Will you give me a sporting two to one, Jeeves, judging from what you have seen of him, that this chappie is not a blighter or an excrescence?"
"No, sir. I should not care to venture such liberal odds.”

Jeeves almost rattled by the visit of the Red Dawn for tea


Bingo’s beard causes Jeeves’s jaw to drop and he has to clutch the table for support

What a tale - one of my favourites

After the magnificent Comrade Bingo I’m on to The Great Sermon Handicap which, as I recall, involves the length of sermons


Bring it on

Haha, Comrade Bingo is a gem! And yes, Jeeves' response to the comrades (and the sardines!) is a classic.

Bingo's love affairs we expect but Jeeves has been engaged twice so far which surprised me - he's quite the lad about town and is maybe younger that he's played/read? These stories make him feel like Bertie's age, not the bald-headed gentleman of so many covers.

The Glossops are fabulous! I'm slightly ahead of you, Nigeyb, The Metropolitan Touch is next.

This is my first Wodehouse and Jeeves so I am way behind you all but greatly enjoyed the first two stories. I like that Wodehouse uses a number of different kinds of humor including types that got more popular later in the century. The red cummerbund for example becomes more funny the more I think of it to a point where it is much funnier when I am thinking of it now, than when I first read the lines. It is like the red cummerbund takes a life of its own in one's mind and continues to grow long after the joke should be finished. Those of you familiar with Seinfeld or Andy Kaufmann follow my meaning and of course we all know Monty Python.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHFXG...

'Fraid I don't know Monty Python - though various colleagues have insisted on showing me YouTube clips. But yes, your point about different forms of humour is absolutely right: verbal, slapstick, wit, absurdity, visual. Wodehouse is a genius.

If you enjoy this, you must try the Blandings books which are even better in my view - I only discovered them recently, read the first one here at Nigey's instigation and loved it so much we then read the entire series.

Nigeyb wrote: "After the magnificent Comrade Bingo I’m on to The Great Sermon Handicap which, as I recall, involves the length of sermons Bring it on"

That's where I am too. And I too mucho enjoyed Comrade Bingo. I agree that the book brings insight into Jeeves' activities. I hadn't thought about the fact that Bertie did not have a cook. The explanation that he ate his major meals were at the club and that Jeeves did the light cooking is spot-on

In my previous readings of The Inimitable Jeeves I'm not sure I realized this was originally a collection of 13 stories laced together to make an 18 chapter 'novel.' It's a pretty cohesive mash up as the vignettes segue into one another quite well.

I'm delighted that we are all finding plenty to enjoy


I'm now onto The Metropolitan Touch in which Bertie receives a telegram from Bingo, who is still at Twing Hall (for the third story in a row).

Bingo is, predictably, in love again, this time with Mary Burgess, niece of the local parson.

The caddish Steggles has re-emerged and may be up to his old tricks again.

I’m onto the penultimate story…


The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace


The troublesome duo keep hanging around instead of going to South Africa

Jeeves is unsympathetic because he disapproves of Bertie's new jazz spats in Etonian colours

A classic set up

That's my next story. I loved The Metropolitan Touch - the idea of those saucy songs being belted out by kids in the village hall is just sublime! The more, um, creative Bingo's ideas of wooing are, the better I like them.

Yes. I couldn't agree more.


I'm now onto the final story which I recall well and, you may be glad to hear, rather neatly brings together all that has preceded it

All hail PGW

A great re-read


The way the stories interlink to form a continuous narrative of sorts just adds to the charm and does make it more of a novel than anything else

Interesting that, on the very last page, Jeeves is preparing dinner for the young master, which brings us full circle and confirms that he can and does prepare all the meals on occasion

Is there no end to the man’s talents?

I'm on 'Bingo and the Little Woman' - are we finally about to meet Rosie?

"Mr Little is certainly warm-hearted, sir."
"Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests."

And I'm finished - I grinned all the way through the final story. I love Bingo's uncle sniffling over Rosie's romances.

I think my big takeaway from this volume is how much more we learn about Jeeves.

Glad it was another hit for you RC


"I think my big takeaway from this volume is how much more we learn about Jeeves"

I think those details are a consequence of its place in the timeline. My guess is that the Jeeves character was still developing and so, for example, details of his personal life would soon stop appearing. This makes him seem more inscrutable and superhuman as the emphasis becomes almost solely about his loyalty, vast knowledge, superior intellect, discreet but effective problem solving, and impeccable taste.

Yes, that's a great point, Nigey - I'd previously read some of the stories at random and wasn't thinking about the timeline. You're absolutely right about the way Jeeves becomes inscrutable later whereas here we have a stronger sense of him as a personality.

I had a day off today and as it was mostly raining stayed in and listened to this one. I have read it before, probably several times, so the stories are all familiar, but they never fail to put a smile on my face. I'm up to The Great Sermon Handicap, which I remember as a favourite.

Tania wrote: "I had a day off today and as it was mostly raining stayed in and listened to this one. I have read it before, probably several times, so the stories are all familiar, but they never fail to put a s..."

Me too! Do you think that's why we never really get anything about WW1 coming up in the stories? I'm rereading Sayers for another group which is connected to these via Bunter who's partly based on Jeeves. And was thinking that the war looms large in Sayers but can't recall it surfacing in Wodehouse.

I don’t recall the war ever getting a mention either. Nothing really bad ever impinges into his worlds.