Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories

Jeeves #short stories

by P.G. Wodehouse, David A. Jasen

Born in England in 1881, Sir P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse delighted generations of readers with his whimsical tales of the deliciously dim aristocrat Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, his brainy, imperturbable manservant. Many are unaware, however, that Bertie had a prototype — Reggie Pepper — who stumbled into the same worrying situations involving old school chums with romantic troubles, irate female relatives, threatening suitors, and other troublemakers.
This is the only collection to contain the first eight Jeeves short stories as well as the complete Reggie Pepper series. Included are such delightful tales as "Extricating Young Gussie," "The Aunt and the Sluggard," Leave It to Jeeves," "Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg," "Absent Treatment, "Rallying Round Clarence," "Concealed Art," and more.
Awash in an eternal glow of old-boy camaraderie, these stories offer hours of delightfully diverting entertainment sure to recaptivate Wodehouse fans of old as well as tickling the fancy of new readers, who will soon find themselves caught up in the splendidly superficial antics of Messrs. Wooster, Jeeves, Pepper, et al.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Short Stories, Classics, Comedy, British Literature, 20th Century

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 1997

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Darla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Especially loved the Jeeves stories. Will be looking for more Wodehouse to read for a good laugh.

[Mrs_Milsent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Як завжди, геніально!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this pristine paperback at my library this weekend and happily brought it home. It was published in 1997 but I felt like I was perhaps the first of very few who have checked this book out. It was my lucky day! You cannot read Jeeves without laughing heartily as Jeeves manages Bertie's life. I was familiar with a good many of the Jeeves/Wooster stories of which there are 8. I had not read any of the Reggie Pepper stories, the earlier prototype for Bertie Wooster. These stories were published in The Saturday Evening Post, The Cosmopolitan and The Strand from 1911 to 1915. Reggie had many of the same traits, but he was missing the all important and richly comic Jeeves.
One example in common between the two characters was Reggie's failure to catch a wife:
""Look here, Ann," I said, "Suppose I pull off some stunt which only a deuced brainy chappie could get away with? Would you marry me then?"
"Certainly. What do you propose to do?"
"Do! What do I propose to do! Well, er, to be absolutely frank, at the moment I don't quite know."
"You never will know, Reggie. You're one of the idle rich, and your brain, if you ever had one, has atrophied."

A very enjoyable read!
Library Loan

[مروان البلوشي · Rating 3 out of 5]

تاريخ القراءة الأصلية : ٢٠٠٣
ظريفة جدا وخفيفة

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1st eight stories are early Jeeves and Wooster and the other seven are Reggie Pepper. This is the first I had read of R.P. and they are funny. Reggie Pepper was the prototype for Bertie Wooster. Lots of laughter in these short stories.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one criss-crosses with My Man Jeeves in a eight of the fifteen stories here, though some are under a different name. Of the remaining seven stories, two of them were present in The Inimitable Jeeves , though the versions here are the all-in-one version, instead of the versions split into chapters. Then, depending on how you approach collecting/reading the Jeeves/Wooster canon, two of these stories show up in other collections. This leaves, as far as I know, only three stories, all Reggie Pepper, that you will only find here (though some editions of The Man with Two Left Feet seems to have them, or some of them, or something).

Those Reggie Pepper stories are possibly my favorite in the volume, being the right mix of farce and plausible romance, so it seems a shame they have generally been overlooked for some of the ones that got a wider reprint. "Concealed Art," about a very-serious-artist-before-his-time who has to hide from poetess wife his secret of making ends meet by writing silly cartoons is just about perfect Wodehouse to read when you need a quiet laugh.

For those digging into the Jeeves/Wooster canon, like me, two stories in this collection - "Extricating Young Gussie" and "Jeeves Takes Charge" - are pretty valuable. The former is the first Jeeves/Wooster published story and the latter is chronologically the first story, recounting the hiring of Jeeves and the first misadventure. Since "Extricating" is generally only available in Two Left Feet, this makes a nice alternative way to acquire it. Both are glimpses of things to come and its good to have them in one place.

This collection ultimately is "Jeeves and Wooster(ish) stories that are in public domain," I suspect, and do a few odd things to order (and titles, since some use the American title but the British text) but by the nature of the collection you actually get a fairly solid and complete early set including all the Reggie Pepper stories and several of the prototype Jeeves/Wooster stories with those like "Extricating Young Gussie" that might be trickier to get in any of other readily available collections.

The Kindle edition has a number of odd typos, mind, though the physical Dover edition seems to run pretty smoothly without much in the way of glitch. And is fairly cheap.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general, it can be said that I am a fan of the writing of P.G. Wodehouse and his various entertaining series [1].  Admittedly, this book is not the best or most polish Wodehouse book I have read, but it is still an interesting book and some of the stories included are quite excellent.  In these early stories one sees Wodehouse working on his writing, determining what sort of plots are best suited to his style, and moving from the sort of absurd romantic situations that are best suited to the plays of Oscar Wilde to something that more closely resembles his mature (if we may call it that) fiction.  This is a rare example of a book that it may be more enjoyable to read from end to beginning rather than beginning to end because the most enjoyable stories are the eight Jeeves stories that begin the collection rather than the complete set of seven Reggie Pepper stories that close the collection.  Either way one tries to read it, these are mildly entertaining short stories that do not take too long to read and that hint at the comic greatness Wodehouse was to achieve in his later works, and that makes these stories worth appreciating.

The fifteen stories included in this volume run to a bit more than 200 pages of fairly light reading, although the Jeeves stories that open the volume seem to sparkle more than the Reggie Pepper stories that close the volume, or at least they did to me.  The eight early Jeeves stories included in this volume include:  Extracting Young Gussie, Leave It To Jeeves, The Aunt And The Sluggard, Jeeves Takes Charge, Jeeves And The Unbidden Guest, Jeeves And The Hard-Boiled Egg, Jeeves And The Chump Cyril, and Jeeves In The Springtime.  The Reggie Pepper stories are Absent Treatment, Lines And Business, Disentangling Old Duggie, Brother Alfred, Rallying Round Clarence, Concealed Art, and Test Case.  None of the stories are particularly long, and many of them involve similar situations where young and somewhat indolent heirs of aristocratic British families try to avoid the threats of their aunts and uncles through the help of wise servants and through their own intuition.  Wodehouse shows himself to be a tropemaster of considerable facility, dealing with romantic entanglements and turning what could have been viewed as domestic tragedies into farcical tales of considerable appeal.

There are at least a few patterns that one can see from these early works that show how Wodehouse found his own voice.  We can see that over time in the short stories he wrote he focused less attention on romantic fiction and sought in later stories to have a more chummy atmosphere of friends and employer-employee relations.  He engages in some worldbuilding when he ties together the Jeeves stories with some concerns about Blandings Castle and the memories of a relative of one of Bertie Wooster's ex-fiances.  Many of the Bertie Wooster stories show him in New York City, in exile from his homeland not dissimilar to that of the author during long stretches of his life where he wrote about English people while living in the United States.  Jeeves shows up as the true worthy hero of his stories, making fashion decisions for his master while also showing considerable insight into the personalities of the people he is around, some of whom underestimate him while others appreciate his value.  There are enough similarities between the stories to encourage readers to connect the stories together and wonder what they had to say about the experiences and mindset of the author, such as demanding women, men who lack a strong work ethic or ambition, young people being dependent on the largess of older and wealthier relatives, people ending up in jail or in disgrace for wild and riotous living, and what makes a house, or a flat/apartment, truly a home.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

[Adelaide Mcginnity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wodehouse being Wodehouse, this is guaranteed four-star material from the get-go, but I cannot help but think that the quality of the Jeeves and Wooster stories improved with practice as Wodehouse perfected the formula that worked and lessened the emphasis on the parts that didn't. Therefore, I would not recommend starting your Jeeves odyssey here, as most of the later stories are, in my opinion, of higher quality.

[Gareth D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Reggie Pepper stories first, having recalled that I didn't find them as entertaining in 'My Man Jeeves'.

It was a good choice because, indeed they aren't as entertaining as J & Wooster, but also it meant that when I read the first Jeeves and W story I realised that Wooster was much more like Reggie Pepper to start with. By the second story he was definitely on form though.

[Skuli Saeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Samansafn 8 fyrstu smásagnanna um treggáfaða yfirstéttarmanninn Bertie Wooster og trúfastan einkaþjón hans Jeeves sem hefur ráð undir rifi hverju. Hér má líka finna allar sögurnar um Reggie Pepper sem var fyrirmyndin að Wooster og nánast tvífari hans. Sögurnar eru margar stórfínar og skemmtilegar en eru því miður afskaplega keimlíkar.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently I was reading the 3rd (of 4) in the series of Dominic Flandry space operas by Poul Anderson. By this time in Flandry's career he is a vice admiral and has, for some years, traveled with a personal valet/bodyguard/chef he has named "Chives" (he's a green, long-tailed alien, but he speaks with a distinctly English-accented butlerian inflection). I had some vague recollection that Chives was based on a character from more classic literature, but didn't know much more than that. I decided to find out, and quickly discovered that Chives was an homage to Jeeves, the indispensable butler to rich layabout Bertie Wooster in P.G. Wodehouses famous serialized stories.

This collection includes the first eight Jeeves stories, in more or less chronological order even though they weren't necessarily written in the order in which they occur (much like Anderson's stories). And they are hilarious. Either Wooster, or his other playboy friends, are always getting into awkward social situations, and they have to turn to Jeeves to bail them out. Jeeves is always one step ahead of everyone and has sized up every situation before anyone else even knows there *is* a situation--but he acts with such aplomb and detached dignity that he seems more like a force of nature. Wodehouse reflects this in the verbs he uses for Jeeves, saying he "shimmers" into a room or "floats" over to answer the door. (He has many other memorable turns of phrase as well, such as "it was so quiet you could hear a snail clear its throat half a mile away.") The joy of each story is watching the protagonists screw themselves deeper and deeper into trouble, then seeing how Jeeves deftly unscrews them out of it again.

Even though Wodehouse wrote these stories just before or during World War I, making them almost 100 years old, they have held up very well, even the colorful upper-class English slang that suffuses the first-person narratives. By the time I got to the first story, I had a distinct and unshakeable mental image of Hugh Laurie playing the somewhat dimwitted Wooster, with either Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) or Harold Peary (The Great Gildersleeve) playing Jeeves. [Edit: It is now late 2016, and I was amazed to learn there was a Jeeves television show which did, in fact, star Hugh Laurie as Wooster! But even better than my picks, Laurie's long-time comedy partner Stephen Fry played Jeeves, and to perfection. You can watch the episodes on YouTube.]

As a bonus, this book also contains the entire series of Wodehouse's Reggie Pepper stories, which are similar to the Jeeves tales except that Pepper combines aspects of Jeeves and Wooster into one character--he's also a rich upper class layabout, but with Jeeves' penchant for helping people out of tight spots (though he doesn't seem to have Jeeve's omniscience and impenetrable sense of dignity). As I read these stories I pictured the incomparable William Powell in Wooster's role.

Since they were serialized when first published, these stories are bite-sized delights that you can enjoy when you have a few free minutes. Highly recommended as an introduction to Wodehouse's charming and very funny writing style.

[Daniel Montague · Rating 4 out of 5]

For better or worse you know what you are getting when you read P.G. Wodehouses' Jeeves series. There are going to be tales about the wealthy idle British during the Interwar period laced with humor. This book of 8 Jeeves and 7 Reggie Pepper short stories does not disappoint. This collection, though not extensive is a good representation of Wodehouses' ability to poke fun at the scions of the reputable British aristocracy. It provided me a valuable palate cleanser after reading so many violent works and living through all of the election shenanigans.

The first 8 stories center on the relationship between Bertie Wooster and his better half, his indomitable valet/man-servant/butler Jeeves. The plot is never really the point in these stories, which is just as well as I do not remember any of them. They are based on the tried and true formula of Bertie having an issue, seemingly of a trivial nature, that he is too thick headed to figure out. These typically deal with one of his upper crust pals who is trying to continue their gravy train lifestyle. Oftentimes, the benefactor is a haranguing aunt or a half senile uncle. In any case, hijinks ensue and after Wooster further screws up matters, Jeeves is there to pick up the pieces and solve the scheme.

The remaining 7 stories were of the Reggie Pepper variety. Initially, I was not a fan of this series but after a couple they grew on me. Though they have many similarities, the Pepper series seemed to focus more on romantic entanglements and the various imbroglios caused by them. Pepper also felt to me more like a scoundrel than Bertie and did not have his genial fatuousness. It also lacked the character of Jeeves, so there were no counterbalances to Reggie Pepper. In spite of these differences, there were some positives, such as not having a fallout between characters, because of a silly fashion decision.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed these stories and they provided me with a few chortles, though no belly laughs. In my head, I give the matrons of the stories the voice of Mrs. Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances which provide further chuckles. I feel, I should watch Downton Abbey, not only because it is supposedly excellent, but also to give me a greater idea of the cadence of speech from that era. With that knowledge the stories may even be more entertaining. I like Wodehouse and I will continue to seek him out when I need a change of pace and good humor.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Wodehouse, just what I needed at this point in time.
Not able to do any serious reading, I was recommended this (thanks Krissy).
Very enjoyable light reading.
His style reminds me a lot of Jerome Jerome (Three Men in a Boat, etc.).
If you are a fan of one, you will surely enjoy the other.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn.” -P.G. Wodehouse

I am so glad Wodehouse decided to write books of the light and frothy variety, rather than something deep and serious and depressing. I really needed a laugh this week, and these early Wodehouse works fit the bill exactly.

Looking at the originally copyright dates of 1912, 1914, 1916 for some of these, I was very impressed by the fact I was still laughing at these zany hijinks more than a 100 years later - and it honestly doesn't feel dated. Wodehouse tapped into real universal themes of how friends can drive you crazy and how inescapable demanding family members can be.

Also, how many humor stories from this time period are still considered funny? Wodehouse took home the gold ring of being considered funny in the moment and continuing to be enjoyed by successive generations - you don't usually get both. Most humor tends to go stale with time - and lets face it, no one is "discovered" to be a good humorist decades later the way high literature can be.

So, thank you Wodehouse for being brilliant and using said brilliance to give people a laugh.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bertie Wooster and Jeeves stories are clever and fun to read. The Reggie Pepper stories less so. In fact there’s a good reason they have not been republished before this volume. Not only are they uninspired in plot (with maybe two exceptions) but the language is repetitive and annoying.
The first sentence of one starts out “I don’t want to bore you, don’t you know, and all that sort of rot, ..,” and continues with over use of the phrase “don’t you know “ and words like “chappie” and “old top” and “old scout” and “What is it Shakespeare or somebody says about…” and the perennial “…and all that sort of thing, what?”
Oof! I love dry witty English dialogue but these are something entirely different. Spare me!

[Jeffrey Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

As fun as usual; the first stories, perhaps, that feature Jeeves. Plus a few with a character named Reggie Pepper. Several of the usual plot devices—at least one, anyway (a character pretending to be someone he isn’t)—certainly plots that dodge and twist about like Wodehouse’s always do, but it’s fun to watch him turn them to slightly different (or not) ends, such as Jeeves manipulating the entire problem to suit his own purposes. Or, rather than a character’s scheme going very reliably wrong, its going absolutely right, in spite of which he still lands in the soup and is handed the mitten and shown the gate. Poor Reggie Pepper.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had this been simply Jeeves stories, it probably would have rated 4-stars from me. Alas, though I knew Reggie Pepper would eventually show up due to the back jacket of the book, I was still somewhat surprised at the inclusion of Reggie Pepper stories in the latter half. This inclusion makes up a good half dozen stories. While I like Jeeves and Wooster, I find Pepper grating. I think it's something about having almost the same story without the dichotomy of the Jeeves/Wooster pairing. Mostly clever and funny, sometimes Wodehouse's casual misogyny resonated throughout the story which distracted me from unfettered enjoyment. Despite that, there are certainly more Jeeves stories in my future.

[MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wodehouse's very first stories (from the 1910s) about Jeeves and Wooster, as well as his earlier stories about a Bertie Wooster prototype Reggie Pepper (well-meaning, idle rich, and constantly trying to help out his friends and ending up in the soup because of it - Wodehouse reworked some of these into better stories for Bertie or Mr. Mulliner). They're enjoyable, and not just for Wodehouse completists, either, but there's a little more exposition and repetition, and a little less polished silliness, than in his later stuff.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a bunch of early Jeeves stories, plus a bunch of stories about a Bertie-Wooster-type named Reggie Pepper. I didn't enjoy the Reggie Pepper stories as much as the Jeeves stories. These have worn a bit over the years; I read all the P.G. Wodehouse stories many years ago, but they are a bit heavy-handedly bigoted (class bigotry) these days. Still enjoyable, but not as funny as I remember them.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book includes the first eight Jeeves short stories and well as The Complete Reggie Pepper stories--Wodehouse's earliest published stories. Fortunately, the author improved his writing skills and authored his later witty and entertaining works, which I have loved reading for years. Good old Reggie, the prototype for Wooster and Jeeves, was a disappointment for me.

[Featherpen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun, quick read! 5 stars for Jeeves and Wooster and 3.5-4 for Reggie Pepper.

Though the Jeeves stories became a little formulaic after a few, they were sweet and funny. I loved the relationship between Jeeves and Bertie. The Reggie Pepper character and stories, although occasionally funny, lacked the generally sweet personality of Wooster and the brainy compassion of Jeeves.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of early Jeeves stories as well as a few about the adventures of Reggie Pepper. They were written for serial magazine publication. I had read most of them in other collections, but Wodehouse is always fun.

[Debra Golden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the stories as amusing diversions and wonder what today's version might sound like. Different slang certainly. What does 'rummy' really mean? I can see why the stories were so popular and all that don't you know.

[Melanie Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came for the elusive "Extricating Young Gussie" episode, but stayed for the interesting plots in the Reggie Pepper stories!

[Peggy Lacorazza · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are so much fun to read. Never get tired of these books.

[Marita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wodehouse is my husband's favorite author. I have seen these in BBC's film versions so many times that I am not going to read past p.56.

[Gregory Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wodehouse stands alone.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love PG Wodehouse, but for some reason this book had several repeated stories.

[Malinda McKinnon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the Jeeves and Wooster stories! The ones after them were meh.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't really get into the Reggie Pepper stories, but the bite sized adventures of Jeeves and Wooster really hit the spot!