Jeeves could be mistaken here. If Uncle George is related to Tom Travers, it is unlikely that he would be Bertie’s uncle (Tom is only an uncle by marriage), and it would be rather an odd coincidence for him to share the surname if they are not related. In any case, evidence elsewhere suggests that Uncle George must be a Wooster. Fictitious, but does occur as an occasional variant spelling of Easby, a village near Richmond, North Yorks. Many of Wodehouse’s country houses are placed in Shropshire. Placenames ending in ‘-by’ are normally of Danish origin, and would be very unusual in Shropshire, though common in Northeast England. ca. 240km) This distance from Cambridge suggests that Miss Sipperley lives somewhere in the North Riding.

A hilarious collection about the antics of Bertie Wooster, who is saved by the clever manipulations of Jeeves, his man-servant. This story appeared two years after the end of the“Spanish influenza” pandemic of 1918–1920, which is believed to have killed between twenty andfifty million people around the world.(By comparison, World War I claimed nine million lives.)The reasons for sending Bertie over to America are detailed in the first Jeeves/Wooster story, “Extricating Young Gussie” (1915), in which Jeeves scarcely appears and Bertie’s surname is unspecified.

A similar piece ofinappropriate advice is Monty Bodkin’s handy tip to the young readers of Tiny Tots concerning the amount ofwater that a whisky bottle can hold ( Heavy Weather, Ch. 2). Bertie is writing an article for a women’s magazine on men’s fashion by request of his aunt. Her neighbor is married to Bingo, and is writing an expose of their marriage for the aunt. Jeeves has been tasked to lure away Bingo’s chef for the aunt which would prompt his wife to kill the story, but the chef is in love with the maid and won’t leave. Bingo asks Bertie to break into his house to steal the manuscript and he is caught. Jeeves whisks Bertie away to a health spa while securing the exchange of household help. In a last chapter Jeeves shares his secrets of managing the gentlemen who employ him in terms of resource and tact. When Bertie is considering adopting a little girl Jeeves arranges a visit to a girls school where the reality of raising children sinks in. A similar deputation of boosting businessmen appears in Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt (1922). There does not appear to be a real place of this name in the USA, although there is one in South Africa. Apparently Beattystown, New Jersey narrowly missed being called Birdsburg. The phrase “Boost for Birdsburg” has taken on a life of its own as an expression of American provincialism. Damocles. In classical mythology he was a courtier of Dionysius the first. At a dinner, Dionysius had a sword suspended over Damocles’s head by a single hair to show him the precarious nature of rank and power. Clustering Round Young Bingo is probably my favorite episode, and it involves a lot of recurring characters. Bertie’s aunt Dahlia comissions him to write an article for ‘Milady’s Boudoir’ on the subject of “What the Well Dressed Man Is Wearing” . While Wooster experiences what it means to be a writer ( I don’t wonder now that all those author blokes have bald heads and faces like birds who have suffered. ) Jeeves is as usual peeved about his master’s fashion sense ( Soft silk shirts with evening costume are not worn, sir!). The central character of the story is neither Bertie, nor Aunt Agatha, nor even Biffy who is threatened by intimate revelations from an article penned by his wife Rosie M Banks. No, here we meet for the first time the celebrated Anatole, the French artist of the cooking range.Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), philosopher, author of The World as Will and Representation, was noted for his pessimism and misogyny.

Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest starts with my favorite quote in the collection: I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare – or, if not, some equally brainy bird – who says that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneakes up behind him with a bit of lead piping. Bertie's friend, Corky, needs help getting his uncle to agree to Corky's engagement. Jeeves comes up with a brilliant plan but the scheme goes a little awry when the uncle marries the girl and produces an heir. Corky is an artist and his uncle gets him to paint a picture of the child. Corky does so but the picture makes the child look hideous and the uncle swears to cut Corky off from his financial help. Jeeves then tells Corky that he should take the picture to the papers and have them run it as a comic. Corky does so and makes quite a bit of money. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. As a diameter is – by definition – a line through the centre of a sphere or circle, this is tautologous. Bertie is saying the same thing twice, for comic emphasis.Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of music brought before him: and his sleep went from him. Helping Freddie" (Reggie Pepper, rewritten as the Jeeves story " Fixing it for Freddie" in Carry On, Jeeves) The Sunbeam Motor Company was founded by John Marston in Wolverhampton in 1899. In 1920 they merged with Talbot and Darracq, but Sunbeam kept its separate identity, specialising in high-performance cars, until being taken over by Rootes in 1935.