History Literature / JeevesAndWooster

Arthur Treacher was well-known as the embodiment of Jeeves in a series of films in the 1930s, with Creator/DavidNiven taking the part of Bertie Wooster. In the Sixties, Ian Carmichael (better known for playing Literature/LordPeterWimsey) as Bertie and Dennis Price as Jeeves appeared in the TV series ''The World of Wooster''. (It is on record that Wodehouse did not care much for any of these adaptations.)

* ''Thank You, Jeeves'' (1934)

* {{Blackface}}: Bertie, who is being held prisoner on old man Stoker's yacht in ''Thank You, Jeeves'', disguises himself in this way in order to leave the yacht with a black minstrel troupe. This becomes a problem when he can't get the boot black off. Sir Roderick Glossop, who had also donned blackface to entertain Aunt Myrtle's young son Seabury, has the same problem.

** But when Bertie takes up the banjolele in ''Thank You, Jeeves,'' he fits the trope once again.

** Many members of the Drones Club go by nicknames, often for excellent reasons; in ''Thank You, Jeeves'', "Chuffy" Chuffnell has gone his whole life concealing that his first name is Marmaduke.

* FireForgedFriends: In the course of ''Thank You, Jeeves,'' one occurs between Bertie and [[spoiler: Sir Roderick Glossop.]] Their sudden matiness can be quite astounding to those who miss the relevant chapter of the Wooster memoirs!

* HeelFaceTurn: Sir Roderick Glossop, the noted looney-doctor, over the course of ''Thank You, Jeeves.''

* UnableToSupportAWife: "Chuffy" Chufnell in ''Thank You, Jeeves!'' doesn't feel like he can marry Pauline Stoker because he is land poor despite being a lord, and can't support her.

* IronicName: Bingo's Communist girlfriend, Charlotte Corday Rowbotham, so named because her father thought it was a good revolutionary name. Anyone familiar with the history of the French Revolution will know that Charlotte Corday was actually an ''anti''-revolution royalist, who assassinated leading revolutionary figure Jean-Paul Marat.

* TheJeeves: TropeNamer.

* LastGirlWins: If a Wodehouse character has been pursuing the same girl across multiple books, it's almost a given he'll run off with a brand-new female character in the last installment. Augustus Fink-Nottle is a prime example.

* ''Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves'' (1963)

* ActionGirl: Being light comedy, the series doesn't offer much opportunity to demonstrate such things, but Emerald Stoker nevertheless makes a pretty good showing in ''Stiff Uppper Lip, Jeeves,'' braining Spode with a china basin when he [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend starts manhandling Gussie]].

* WalkingDisasterArea: Bertie. Lampshaded in ''Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves'', after he breaks Sir Watkyn's father's [[PricelessMingVase grandfather clock]].
-->'''Bassett:''' "[My father] never parted from the clock. It accompanied him in perfect safety from Rome to Vienna, from Vienna to Paris, from Paris to Washington, from Washington to Lisbon. One would have said it was indestructible. But it had still to pass the '''supreme''' test of ''encountering Mr. Wooster'', and that was too much for it."

* GoodIsDumb: Bertie is a "mentally negligible" nice guy, while Jeeves is brilliant but ruthless, sometimes verging on HeroicComedicSociopath. Creator/GeorgeOrwell remarked that the contrast reflects "the widespread English belief that intelligence and unscrupulousness are much the same thing."

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In "Extricating Young Gussie", the first Jeeves and Wooster short story, Bertie's personality and his relationship with Aunt Agatha are all in place, but their family name appears to be "Mannering-Phipps" instead of "Wooster" (although this is changed in later prints). More noticeably, Jeeves appears for all intents and purposes to be an ordinary valet, and when Bertie gets in trouble and needs help, he has no idea who to ask. The surname "Wooster" and the personality of Jeeves as we know him today don't appear until the second story, aptly titled "Leave It to Jeeves". (The series doesn't really begin until the next story, "Jeeves Takes Charge", in which Jeeves enters into Bertie's service. Wodehouse himself might not have considered it canon, as it's left out of otherwise comprehensive collection ''The World of Jeeves''.)

* HonorBeforeReason: An attitude that gets Bertie into constant trouble.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Happens often. In ''Jeeves in the Offing'', Bobbie Wickham announces her engagement to Bertie because she knows her mother hates Bertie--the idea is to soften Mom up for the man she really wants to marry, Reggie Herring. Unfortunately she doesn't tell Reggie about this, so he reads the Announcements section of the paper, believes he's been dumped, and writes her an angry letter. She receives it, and dumps him for real.

** The same silver cow creamer is a crucial plot point in both ''The Code of the Woosters'' and ''How Right You Are, Jeeves''.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Happens often. In ''How Right You Are, Jeeves'', Bobbie Wickham announces her engagement to Bertie because she knows her mother hates Bertie--the idea is to soften Mom up for the man she really wants to marry, Reggie Herring. Unfortunately she doesn't tell Reggie about this, so he reads the Announcements section of the paper, believes he's been dumped, and writes her an angry letter. She receives it, and dumps him for real.

* ''Jeeves in the Offing'' (1960)

* FirstWorldProblems: But [[TropesAreNotBad in a very good way]]. The inhabitants of the Jeeves and Wooster universe are hugely rich without having to work for it, and nobody is ever in serious danger. Even relationship troubles are strictly angst-free, and exclusively caused by social misunderstandings rather than abuse or adultery.

** In the original magazine version of "Bertie Changes His Mind," the only story narrated by Jeeves, Jeeves referred to Bertie as "the guv'nor" and used other slang terms that suggested his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness was all an act. When the story was collected in a book, Wodehouse rewrote the narration to remove these moments.

* ElectionDayEpisode: ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'' involves Ginger Winship, one of Bertie's old chums, campaigning to become a Member of Parliament. Aunt Dahlia is supporting him and wants Bertie to work for him as well.

* PoliticiansKissBabies: Ginger Winship, candidate for Parliament in ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'', finds this disgusting, but something he has to do if he wants to win office.

* SlippingAMickey: The Junior Ganymede Club, which caters exclusively to valets, requires its members to divulge unflattering secrets about their employers. Former valet Bingley absconds with the sensitive journal in order to use it as blackmail material. So in ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'', Jeeves drugs Bingley's drink and steals the journal back.

* WackyAmericansHaveWackyNames: When told in ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'' that the name of Ginger's new secretary is Magnolia Glendennon, Bertie says "It can't be." HypocriticalHumor, of course, considering all of the ridiculous names of Bertie's friends. "Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright", anyone?

* ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'' (1971)

* TakeThat: Wodehouse didn't like the film adaptation starring Creator/DavidNiven, which flipped Bertie around into a lady's man. In ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'', Bertie grows a mustache and tries to use David Niven as justification. Jeeves tells him in no uncertain terms that Bertie is ''not'' David Niven.

* BuxomIsBetter: Bertie might be a CelibateHero, but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate the female form. Like in ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'', when he describes the gorgeous Daphne Dolores Moorehead as having "more curves than a scenic railway". In the first story, "Jeeves Takes Charge", he has to point out that Florence Craye is "seen sideways, most awfully good-looking."

** In ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'', Bertie winds up climbing into Florence Craye's room at night by mistake (ItMakesSenseInContext). Florence, in her bedclothes, demands that Bertie kiss her. He does, but then says "the whole thing seemed to me to be becoming far too French."

* GenreSavvy: In ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'', Bertie gets engaged to Florence Craye again. However, he's not too worried about it, because he observed that he always manages to avoid getting married.

* ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'' (1954)(aka ''Bertie Wooster Sees It Through'')

** Hilda Gudgeon in ''The Mating Season''

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In "Jeeves in the Springtime," the first of the Bingo Little stories, Jeeves turns out to have been manipulating the situation so that he could break off his engagement to another servant and steal Bingo's girlfriend away from him. Subsequent stories never had Jeeves talk about his romantic life, if any, and Jeeves was never quite so unscrupulous again.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Bertie's Uncle Willoughby, mentioned in first story "Jeeves Takes Charge". Bertie is financially dependent on him. Uncle Willoughby is never mentioned again, as later stories and novels concentrate on Bertie's aunts, Agatha and Dahlia. (There's a FanWank to the effect that Uncle Willoughby died and left Bertie his money, since Bertie is financially independent in later works.)

* LastNameBasis: Bertie only very belatedly realizes that Jeeves even ''has'' a first name. [[note]] It's Reginald.[[/note]]

* NiceGuy: Bertie Wooster.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: At the end of ''The Mating Season,'' Esmond Haddock's defiance of his five aunts inspires Bertie to confront his Aunt Agatha. Sadly, the book ends with his decision to do so.

* TheVerse: There are actually quite a few novels and short stories by Wodehouse that don't feature Bertie and Jeeves but share continuity. The "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drones_Club Drones Club]]" series includes not just Bertie's club but several characters from Jeeves stories, like Bingo Little and Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright. Pongo Twistleton from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fred Uncle Fred]] stories is mentioned in ''Literature/RightHoJeeves''. Bobbie Wickham is a distant niece of Mr. Mulliner, and is featured in three of his stories.

Note: The order in which stories were grouped together in collections does not always match with the order of their initial publication. For example, "Jeeves Takes Charge", the third Jeeves and Wooster story, was originally published in 1916 but didn't get included in a book until 1925.

** "Extricating Young Gussie"

** "Leave it to Jeeves"[[note]]really the first Jeeves and Wooster story, as this one finds Jeeves with his character fully formed; later rewritten as "The Artistic Career of Corky"[[/note]], "Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest", "Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg", "The Aunt and the Sluggard"

* UnableToSupportAWife:
** "Chuffy" Chufnell in ''Thank You, Jeeves!'' doesn't feel like he can marry Pauline Stoker because he is land poor despite being a lord, and can't support her.
** In ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', Orlo faces this problem. He is actually heir to a trust fund which would be more than enough for him and his beloved Vanessa Cook, but his father disapproves of his left-wing politics and won't release the money, thus leaving him unable to marry Vanessa.