[In the following essay, Späth considers the character of Jeeves as a literary “superman,” and links him to the legendary archetype of detective novel hero.]

There can hardly be any doubt that the most intriguing character created by P. G. Wodehouse is that of butler Jeeves, even though, as the clever servant who, episode after episode, proves superior to his master, he is anything but original. From the viewpoint of literary history he is indeed of as ancient a family as that hopelessly inefficient rich young man whom he serves. The extraordinary fascination Jeeves has held for a vast number of readers invites some investigation of how his author made use of one of the stock figures of comedy.

But, as we hope to demonstrate, Jeeves is not only the traditional sly servant; he is also one of the supermen of popular literature, who may be considered in relation to, for instance, the hero of the detective novel—a genre which gained the peak of its popularity at about the same time as Wodehouse. Furthermore, there is the well-known fact that in the early twentieth century interest in the superman was expressed by several English writers of recognized literary importance, notably by Shaw and Lawrence. The corresponding developments of political history hardly need mentioning here. It seems worthwhile then to analyse the function of Jeeves in this context.

George Orwell, always a sensitive critic of popular writers, noted in 1936:

[…] it was a great day for Mr. Wodehouse when he created Jeeves, and thus escaped from the realm of comedy, which in England always stinks of virtue, into the realm of pure farce. The great charm of Jeeves is that (although he did pronounce Nietzsche to be ‘fundamentally unsound’) he is beyond good and evil.¹

At first this may seem a little surprising since, superficially, Jeeves appears to be as genuinely Victorian as any average middle-class reader might have wished, especially when we compare him to the traditional servant of comedy whose morals are notoriously low. Jeeves knows neither financial greed nor sexual desires; it is, in fact, impossible to think of him as having erotic inclinations. He does like to collect any pecuniary rewards that may come his way, but what he enjoys in such cases is the success of his stratagems rather than the material gains. He would never do anything improper; his language is as immaculate as his manners or his appearance.

What strikes us about Jeeves is that he is not essentially interested in either doing good or doing well. The only guideline for his actions is contained in the phrase he frequently uses: “I endeavour to give satisfaction, Sir.”² It might be said that as a moral being Jeeves will be nothing but a butler. However, this sole ethical rule of loyalty to his master is interpreted by him as he thinks fit, not as the latter might wish. Jeeves's methods include a little blackmail now and again, or the occasional use of knock-out drops, but never anything as undignified as actual violence. The point about him is that he does not need it. He does not labour for success; it comes to him as the result of artistic endeavour.

Characteristically, he is a virtual dictator in questions of taste, whereas his ethics do not permit him to criticize morally any of Bertram's enterprises. However obstinately the young gentleman may behave at first, Jeeves inevitably gets his way when there are dissenting opinions about ties and suits. From time to time Bertram feels he ought to express an employer's righteous indignation about this, but his mood softens quickly, when he recalls some of his man's superhuman feats:

More than once, as I have shown, it has been my painful task to squelch in him a tendency to get uppish and treat the young master as a serf or peon.

These are grave defects.

But one thing I have never failed to hand the man. He is magnetic. There is about him something that seems to soothe and hypnotize. To the best of my knowledge, he has never encountered a charging rhinoceros, but should this contingency occur, I have no doubt that the animal, meeting his eye, would check itself in mid-stride, roll over and lie purring with its legs in the air.

At any rate he calmed down Aunt Dahlia […]³

In most cases there is a perfectly rational explanation for Jeeves's charismatic powers: he has wide experience, common sense, and psychological insight. But some of his achievements are so impressive that not only the feeble-minded Bertram is inclined to credit him with superhuman abilities. Jeeves, for instance, is able to mix a “magic” drink which instantly cures his master's hangovers. He moves noiselessly, and Bertram even believes that he can walk through walls.⁴ Often Jeeves is referred to as “the higher powers”⁵, and on several occasions his actions are described in the words of Cowper's hymn: “[he] moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.”⁶

It appears to be appropriate, then, to call him a superman, and also a true genius, who, as genius ought to be, is bounded only by his own laws: the laws of butlering. This means that he uses his giant brain to no other effect than to steer a not too bright young man gently past the pitfalls, which threaten a life devoted to innocent pleasure. It also explains that he has high standards of taste, which he autocratically imposes on his employer.

Turning our attention to Bertram Wooster we recognize some features of the dandy in him, but they are less prominent than he himself would have liked. The general impression is one of an overgrown schoolboy with plenty of pocket money. He likes drinking in his club, where he and his pals have a great time throwing bread at each other. He is very happy playing with a toy duck in his bath.⁷ Unfortunately, he is repeatedly torn from such joys and called upon to undergo testing adventures. One of his friends observes aptly:

We are as little children, frightened of the dark, and Jeeves is the wise nurse who takes us by the hand.⁸

Happily, Jeeves is not only a wise nurse, but a male one, or else his protegés would be very unwilling to put so much trust in him. Women often strike fear in the hearts of Wooster and his friends:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again—girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being more d. than the m.⁹

Bertram is particularly terrified of aunts, as he sees in them a highly repressive type of authority. Wodehouse who, by the way, was brought up mostly in boarding schools and by relatives, very rarely shows us parent-child relationships, and if he does, they are of a rather detached nature. The rôle of mothers in his books is an especially small one, while aunts are in abundance, and where there are aunts, there is trouble. Invariably they tyrannize their nephews, husbands or brothers. They begrudge them their favourite pleasures and seek to diminish their liberty; they want them to put on proper clothes and to be a social success; they make it their constant concern to prevent unsuitable matches and to bring about desirable ones; they are snobbish and parsimonious. Aunts have morals, of course, but these are such as to suit entirely their own inclinations while interfering grossly with the wishes of others. There is very little a Wooster-aunt would not do in pursuit of what she considers her right or duty. The title of a late Wodehouse novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974) sums up Bertram's lifelong experience with that kind of relative.¹⁰ The fact that Dahlia, to whom this verdict refers, is the aunt he dislikes least, fits in with her being rather masculine in appearance and habits: she hunts, swears, gambles, and spends more money than is good for her husband's digestion.

Young women make no less trouble for Bertram than aunts. According to the different dangers they represent, they can be divided into two types, both of which we find in The Code of the Woosters. There is Madeline, a dreamy, sentimental girl, who reveals to Bertram on more than one occasion that he is in love with her and that she will accept him. This poses a paralyzing problem for the young hero, as his code of honour forbids him to tell a lady that he would do anything rather than marry her. On the other hand, there is Stiffy Byng, who capriciously exploits the cavalier code by demanding of her lover, a young curate, that he steal the local policeman's helmet. One is reminded of Salomé, when, later on, the helmet is brought in by a butler “on a silver salver”¹¹.

There are male persons, too, of whom Wooster is afraid, older men of high professional or official authority, like the psychiatrist Sir Roderick Glossop, and Sir Watkyn Bassett, a judge, who fined him once and would love the opportunity of sending him to prison. In the absurd Wodehouse world it is not at all surprising that both gentlemen are also potential fathers-in-law for Bertram, since their daughters are determined to marry him. In the presence of persons like Sir Watkyn he is reminded of childhood fears, such as he experienced before punishment by his headmaster:

I was feeling more as I had felt in the old days of school when going to keep a tryst with the headmaster in his study. You will recall my telling you of the time I sneaked down by night to the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn's lair in quest of biscuits and found myself unexpectedly cheek by jowl with the old bird, I in striped non-shrinkable pyjamas, he in tweeds and a dirty look. On that occasion, before parting, we had made a date for half-past four next day at the same spot.¹²

The aged judge, though not exactly a senex amorosus, and possibly for some quite practical purpose, wishes to marry into the family of Roderick Spode, founder and leader of a fascist organization, called “Saviours of Britain” or “Black Shorts”. Roderick is the other type of man of whom Bertram is terrified, the male bully. He is of giant size, wears an impressive moustache, and, for the sake of his mission, which requires him to remain single, refrains from marrying the judge's daughter.¹³

We are now able to take stock of the problems, fears and enemies besetting our young gentleman. At one level he is the child afraid of grownups, of their power and authority; he is the weak boy afraid of those who are stronger. At a second level he is an adolescent male afraid of the other sex. Girls frighten him because they do not behave according to the rules that he himself accepts; so they appear to be unpredictable, unscrupulous, and dangerous:

I stared at the young pill, appalled at her moral code, if you could call it that. You know, the more I see of women, the more I think there ought to be a law. Something has got to be done about this sex, or the whole fabric of Society will collapse, and then what silly asses we shall all look.¹⁴

Furthermore, Bertram has learnt that girls imply the threat of married life. Presumably he was once told that women wait for men to ask the relevant question, but he has found that ladies who decide to make him their husband take immediate steps to that effect, caring little whether and how he has made up his mind. And worse, the girls who go for him, are intelligent, strong-willed persons; they want to “mould” him according to their wishes. The culmination of all threats is an aunt, since she combines semi-parental authority with female unscrupulousness.

All in all, the enemy side stands—capricious girls excepted—for an orderly middle-class way of life which includes marriage, money, and a career. Judged by this standard, Bertram is bound to receive a very poor rating, as he does, for instance, from Aunt Agatha:

It is young men like you, Bertie, who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair. Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness a life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry.¹⁵

Marriage, it appears, is the first social obligation of man, and the sole road to a tolerably virtuous life. In the eyes of his aunt, Bertram's neglect of this duty is not only morally reprehensible and even sinful, but downright unpatriotic. The naughty nephew, on the other hand, tenaciously clings to his freedom to live a playful life of leisure. This liberty is vaguely associated with the upper classes, to which he belongs in some unspecified way. He does feel responsible for his pals, who seem to have an unlimited claim to his assistance, and for any lady who can make a credible pretence of being in distress.

Bertram might be called a strictly innocent playboy. Life, for him, is a game, interspersed with occasional test matches, which, with his blend of boy-scout and knight-errant mentality he would not have the slightest chance of winning—were it not for Jeeves.

In The Code of the Woosters the invincible butler is involved in a fight against Roderick Spode, who as a pseudo-superman, could be regarded as his direct antitype. Even Bertram recognizes the dictator in him at first sight:

I don't know if you have ever seen these pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of.¹⁶

It is remarkable that a judge, Sir Watkyn, is Roderick's friend and ally. In combination, the fascist's physical strength and the force of the law are hard to beat. In order to help Wooster, Jeeves makes use of information received through the intelligence network of his butlers' club. There, in the headquarters of the good spirits, Spode's dark secret is known: he earns his living as a designer of ladies underwear—an occupation clearly unfavourable to the ambitions of an aspiring dictator. Jeeves tells the name of Spode's business to Bertram, who is to mention it in times of danger. The latter, equipped with what to him is a completely mysterious weapon, confidently confronts the enemy, only to find that he has forgotten the magic word. However, just in time he remembers, and the bully is reduced to a cringing coward, while Bertram is able to cast himself in the rôle of a stern teacher:

‘I have not been at all satisfied with your behaviour since I came to this house. The way you were looking at me at dinner. You may think people don't notice these things, but they do.’

‘Of course, of course.’

‘And calling me a miserable worm.’

‘I'm sorry I called you a miserable worm, Wooster. I spoke without thinking.’

‘Always think, Spode. Well, that is all. You may withdraw.’¹⁷

Since The Code of the Woosters was published in 1939, the political allusion implied by the character of Spode is obvious enough. It would be wrong, however, to emphasize the importance of such direct references to contemporary political affairs in the novels of P. G. Wodehouse. Basically Spode is just one type of evil person in Wooster-land. By making him a potential dictator Wodehouse adds topically to an essentially timeless character, and thus connects his fairytale-world with the reader's experience. Fiction and reality, despite their apparent disparity, are shown to be related to each other, as indeed they always are, even though in popular literature such relatedness is normally of a less obvious kind. The character of Spode, when contrasted to Jeeves, points to the fact that the latter may be seen in connection with the question of leadership, which at that time was widely discussed in politics and literature.

Collaboration between Wooster and his butler began in 1917, from which time until 1941, the year of his ill-advised Berlin broadcasts¹⁸, the popularity of Wodehouse grew continuously. There is no need to decribe at any length the social and political problems that marked Britain in those decades. Certainly the threat of another war, the struggles for power, and the hunt for jobs and money led to an acute consciousness of change—of change for the worse. In David Thomson's England in the Twentieth Century the chapter on the years after the First World War is given the heading “Into the Waste Land”. Thomson writes:

It seems likely that public life at all levels suffered a deterioration of standards, and a decline of taste. […] and there was a propensity […] to see pre-war conditions in a rosier hue than they had ever merited.¹⁹

In this context the author also describes the changing rôle of women in society:

The emancipation of women took a multitude of forms: from lighter clothing and shorter hair and skirts to more open indulgence in drink, tobacco, and cosmetics, from insistence on smaller families to easier facilities for divorce.²⁰

If we set against this the essentially Victorian views on women of Bertram Wooster, we can perhaps understand that he was frightened, that he feared the collapse of society and called for anti-feminine legislation²¹, whereas, in real life, women were about to be granted equal suffrage.

In the United States depression and unemployment signalled the end of the American Dream. There, at least, the usefulness of the inherited constitution was never seriously questioned, while in Europe, not excluding Britain, the capacity of democracy for dealing with the problems that had arisen was doubted by a considerable number of people, some of whom expressed the wish for a kind of political superman.

D. H. Lawrence, for instance, believed that since hereditary aristocracy had spent its strength, and since democracy was based on a false assumption of equality, people would eventually seek their “natural” leaders:

At last the masses will come to such men and say: “You are greater than we. Be our lords. Take our life and our death in your hands, and dispose of us according to your will. Because we see a light in your face, and burning on your mouth.”²²

Earlier, in 1903, a writer whom Lawrence disliked, George Bernhard Shaw, had argued similarly that the “overthrow of the aristocrat has created the necessity for the Superman”²³. He expected nothing but the worst from what he called “Proletarian Democracy”, as such a government would inevitably share the low mental and moral standards of its voters: “You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear”²⁴, is Shaw's caustic verdict. Therefore progress must remain an illusion, until it is given a biological basis:

The only fundamental and possible Socialism is the socialization of the selective breeding of Man: in other terms, of human evolution. We must eliminate the Yahoo, or his vote will wreck the commonwealth.²⁵

Man, according to Shaw, must consciously develop himself into superman. The ultimate purpose of this process is not a new type of individual leader, but the breeding of nations of supermen, of “King Demos”²⁶.

The Irish dramatist nearly always gave the public a chance not to take his provocative ideas seriously, and usually they were not taken seriously. Lawrence, on the other hand, left no such loop-hole to his readers, and, consequently, was received with considerable hostility. And if we look for a superman in what was popular fiction at the time, in the detective novel for instance, we do not find heroes whom we might give such a title without unduly stretching the meaning of the word. The fictional detectives are gentlemen rather than supermen; they certainly cannot be said to be “beyond good and evil”.

Bertram Wooster, too, adheres strictly, if somewhat naively, to a gentleman's code, but it is this attitude that often brings him close to disaster. In both the works by Shaw and Lawrence from which the above quotations were taken there is also a typical gentleman who fails to achieve his main object, because he is a gentleman. Octavius, in Man and Superman, is a sincere, chivalrous and kind man, deeply in love with Ann, who drops him for the radical revolutionist Tanner. In “The Ladybird”, Basil, a good-looking, courageous officer, adores his wife Daphne, but she is drawn irresistibly to the “natural aristocrat”, the Bohemian count Psanek.

Shaw and Lawrence, though for different reasons, attack both the ideal of a gentleman and the Victorian idea of a lady. Ann is described as a person, who will “commit every crime a respectable woman can”²⁷—an attitude that with equal justice might be attributed to the typical aunt in a Wodehouse novel. And like some of the young women there, Ann is, where men are concerned, the hunter, not the prey.

So, while there is in early twentieth-century English literature a tendency to be critical of traditional standards of behaviour as regards the two sexes, as well as of the liberal belief in progress and democracy, the detective novel, on the other hand, affirms the validity of pre-War concepts of social order, justice, morals, and manners; it presents as hero a perfect gentleman in a milieu essentially unaffected by historical change.

At a superficial glance, the fictional world of P. G. Wodehouse, who was said by Orwell to have remained “mentally in the Edwardian age”²⁸, seems to belong to the past in a similar way. However, strange as it may seem, his novels, quite unlike other popular fiction of the period between the Wars, reflect current issues in a remarkable degree. In this, and also in the psychology on which their characterization is based, they are closer to what is generally regarded as the mainstream of English fiction of that time. There, for instance, the influence of childhood traumata on later life is frequently pointed out and analysed. Bertram Wooster, too, is shown to suffer from the imprint left on him by adult authority when he was a boy:

To people who don't know my Aunt Agatha I find it extraordinarily difficult to explain why it is that she has always put the wind up me to such a frightful extent. I mean, I'm not dependent on her financially or anything like that. […] You see, all through my childhood and when I was a kid at school she was always able to turn me inside out with a single glance and I haven't come out from under the influence yet.²⁹

Such inhibitions are closely connected with his imagining women to be both mentally and physically stronger than he is. So he suspects that Honoria Glossop, while she was educated at Girton, was a selection for the college boxing team.³⁰ One of his verdicts on modern women in general is that they are “thugs, all lipstick and cool, hard, sardonic eyes”³¹.

An error often to be found in critical opinion on Wodehouse is that he ignores the economic and social troubles of his age. In fact, the quest for money and the anguish caused by the lack of it, are recurrent motifs in his works. Wooster, it is true, lives on a secure financial basis, but several of his friends are hampered by an acute shortage of cash needed either to open a small business and get married, or, just as likely, for some utterly absurd project. Even members of wealthy aristocratic families, like the relatives of the Earl of Emsworth are sometimes forced to resort to the meanest schemes to balance their budgets.

These problems, admittedly, always affect individuals, not society as a whole. However, the stately homes of these novels seem to be pervaded by a veiled threat of change, and, at times, people have to be reminded not to forget their station, be they footmen, or secretaries, or upstart millionaires. One of the earlier Wodehouse heroes, the impecunious R. Psmith, goes as far as to join the Socialists, but apart from his calling everyone “comrade”, he does not exhibit any sign of left-wing inclinations. When Bertram's pal Bingo Little joins the Communists, he does so from purely personal motives, as the object of his devotions at the time happens to be a member of that party.³² The one extremist politician of any importance in a Wodehouse novel is the Fascist Spode, who, much like his counterparts of the opposite persuasion, is a violent and basically insincere person, without either taste or manners. It is because of their crudeness, mainly, that these enemies of democracy are felt to be even more disagreeable than the bourgeois aunts.

Obviously, some of the topics which aroused general interest between the Wars found their way into this fictional world, which otherwise reminds us so much of Edwardian England. Bertram's life seems to consist of repeated efforts to reconcile the troubled present with that mythical past, when gentlemen were still free and unencumbered, bound only by their honour, and when ladies still were ladies. Left to himself, he would be doomed to fail, not only through lack of strength and intelligence, but because, in order to succeed, he would have to be untrue to his code. Clearly, he needs someone able to combine in an aesthetically satisfactory way the demands of modern life with the ideals of the past. What is needed, this appears to be the message of P. G. Wodehouse, is a butler, not a Hitler.

Butlers seem to have been a specifically English upper class institution, highly esteemed as distinguished members of the household staff. They were assigned to the master of the house rather than to the lady and were, for instance, in charge of the wine cellar and responsible for the plate. They would be able to advise their masters on questions of etiquette or clothes, but would never attempt to be on familiar or intimate terms with them. They would have to be tactful, discreet, and, above all, loyal. A butler, therefore, was a person of considerable authority, and Wodehouse tells us that, as a youth, he used to be in awe of these “supermen”³³, who “passed away with Edward the Seventh”³⁴. In a country in which language and manners are regarded as distinctive of class their being able to speak like gentlemen would put them in a unique position between the separate worlds of upstairs and downstairs. This, at a time when Europe was seething with social turmoil, must have made the butler a figure of some literary potential. Was not there a type of character whom one could well imagine turning into a working class hero and strip the idle rich of their wealth and power?

Indeed, if we watch Jeeves continually solving Bertram's problems—outwitting bullies, extracting money for his friends from their tight-fisted relatives, saving him from conjugal slavery—we may wonder how the relationship between master and butler is to remain stable. Is it credible that this superman should not attempt to become ruler of him who has enlisted his help, since it is in the nature of a superman to dictate? Is it not inevitable that he should dictate in order to help? In 1902 a stage butler, created by James Matthew Barrie, actually deposed his aristocratic employers. In The Admirable Crichton, the hero turns out to be a “natural aristocrat”, who, as the only capable person, assumes the rôle of leader when their ship is wrecked on a desert island. After their return to civilization the previous hierarchy is restored. Thus, this Shavian comedy of ideas demonstrates that artificial traditions are of greater weight than natural abilities in determining a person's place in English society.³⁵

Bertram, as we have seen in an earlier quotation³⁶, does feel that he has to assert himself against Jeeves and he cannot help asking himself occasionally,

[…] why a man with his genius is satisfied to hang around pressing my clothes and what not. If I had half Jeeves's brain I should have a stab at being Prime Minister or something.³⁷

Thus, in an unobtrusive way, the question of the potential political ambition of a superman is raised. However, Jeeves is too complete a butler to wish to be anything else. Loyalty is essential to his character, rebellion outside the scope of his existence. Furthermore, his mental superiority makes it unnecessary for him to seek a position of dominance. His ultimate perfection consists in the fact that he does not have to become a dictator.

The relationship between Jeeves and Bertram, therefore, is beautifully balanced, neither of them wishing to alter it. One might even consider it to be an exemplary case of co-operation for their mutual benefit between capital and brains, rendering superfluous every social dispute. The butler leads without dominating, while the master is led and, yet, retains his status. The reader can safely turn his mind to Bertram's agonies and rejoice with him over his victories, knowing that he has put his trust in a reliable, unambitious superman.

So, when the novels of P. G. Wodehouse mix with the timeless material of comedy some current problems, the solution offered is of current interest too; it is also absurd and specifically English: Wodehouse advances the paradoxical idea of a ‘constitutional superman’, i.e. a superman who by virtue of his inherent constitution will be ever loyal and benevolent. Psychologically, this was probably a more satisfactory way of dealing with this question in literature than the provocative attempts of Shaw and Lawrence or the conservative approach of the detective novel. Jeeves, indeed, gave satisfaction! It seems appropriate that, when in 1939 Oxford conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. Litt., Wodehouse was hailed in The Times as

“Ruler unquestioned of the Land of Laughter”.³⁸

Notes

1. New English Weekly, March 5, 1936, in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, ed. S. Orwell and I. Angus, vol. I, An Age Like This, 1920-1940 (London, 1968), p. 167. Orwell alludes to the story in which Jeeves makes his first appearance: “Jeeves Takes Charge”, in Carry on Jeeves (1925; Harmondsworth, 1980), p. 30. All quotations from Wodehouse in this paper follow the Penguin editions; the first number in brackets stands for the year of the first publication, the second for the year in which the quoted edition was published.

2. See for instance: “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest”, Carry on Jeeves, p. 71.

3. Right Ho, Jeeves (1934; 1980), p. 228.

4. Right Ho, Jeeves, p. 187.

5. The Code of the Woosters (1938; 1980), p. 65.

6. See for instance: “Without the Option”, Carry on Jeeves, p. 170.

7. Right Ho, Jeeves, p. 71.

8. The Code of the Woosters, p. 53.

9. Right Ho, Jeeves, p. 196. Wooster means, of course: “the female of the sex being more deadly than the male.”

10. Interesting observations concerning the “aunt question” and its autobiographical relevance can be found in Richard Usborne, Wodehouse at Work to the End (London, 1961; rev. ed. 1976; Penguin ed. 1978), pp. 46 ff.

11. The Code of the Woosters, p. 217. Cf. O. Wilde, Salomé: “A huge black arm, the arm of the Executioner, comes forth from the cistern, bearing on a silver shield the head of Jokanaan.”

12. The Code of the Woosters, p. 157.

13. The Code of the Woosters, p. 54.

14. The Code of the Woosters, p. 74.

15. The Inimitable Jeeves (1924; 1982), p. 29 f.

16. The Code of the Woosters, p. 16.

17. The Code of the Woosters, p. 126.

18. A series of lectures given by Wodehouse for the American service of Radio Berlin, where, in a humorous way, he told the story of his internment by the Nazis, avoiding serious criticism and causing many of his compatriots and many Americans to accuse him of collaboration with the enemy. These lectures were reprinted in Encounter, 3 (1954), 17-24 and 39-47. One of the people to rally to the support of Wodehouse was George Orwell, who based his case mainly on the former's political naiveté. See G. Orwell, “In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse”, in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. III: As I Please 1943-1945 (London, 1968), 341-355.

19. England in the Twentieth Century, The Pelican History of England, 9 (Harmondsworth, 1965; 1977), p. 85.

20. England in the Twentieth Century, p. 86 f.

21. See England in the Twentieth Century, p. 6.

22. “The Ladybird”, in Three Novellas (London, 1923; Penguin ed. 1960), p. 59.

23. Man and Superman, (1903; Penguin ed. 1960), p. 248.

24. Man and Superman, “Epistle Dedicatory to Arthur Bingham Walkley”, p. 24.

25. Man and Superman, p. 245.

26. Man and Superman, p. 249.

27. Man and Superman, p. 48.

28. “In Defence of Wodehouse”, p. 354.

29. The Inimitable Jeeves, p. 27.

30. The Inimitable Jeeves, p. 48.

31. Right Ho, Jeeves, p. 11.

32. The Inimitable Jeeves, ch. 11, “Comrade Bingo”, pp. 101-112.

33. Wodehouse, “Good-bye to Butlers”, in Wodehouse on Wodehouse (London, 1980; 1981), p. 511.

34. “Good-bye to Butlers”, p. 512.

35. Cf. R. B. D. French, P. G. Wodehouse (Edinburgh, London, 1966), p. 100f. French points out that Jeeves, unlike Crichton, would not become a dictator.

36. See p. 270.

37. “The Artistic Career of Corky”, Carry on Jeeves, p. 38.

38. The line is from a congratulatory poem by Mrs K. A. Esdale; see Wodehouse on Wodehouse, p. 345.