The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #53 ｜ The Inimitable Jeeves

00:00:00.000 Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to Chronicles, where today we're going to be

00:00:18.000 talking all about The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Woodhouse. So the story behind this one is I've

00:00:26.200 just had a nice week off and I've been over, you know, blazing summer sun and everything

00:00:31.840 over in Margate in Kent by the seaside. And I thought to myself, well, what reading material

00:00:37.840 do I have that would be a good bit of work to do, of course, you know, ready for presenting

00:00:43.340 this Chronicles, but also something that is just very whimsical, very charming, very English,

00:00:49.220 you know, and the sort of thing that might be quite fun reading whilst you are on the beach

00:00:53.600 or just taking in the sun, and P.G. Woodhouse seemed like the ideal options from amongst the

00:00:59.260 things that I'd had on my shelf. And the other thing as well is just to admit, this is actually

00:01:03.440 the first time I've ever read P.G. Woodhouse before. Of course, I'm very, very well acquainted

00:01:09.020 with how famous the Jeeves and Worcester characters are, no doubt, of course, in large part because of

00:01:16.380 the very successful series that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie did in the 1990s, which, again,

00:01:23.320 I've only just started to actually see now. But it's all very charming. It's incredibly quaint.

00:01:29.720 It's very, very inoffensive. And really what you find in here is a great swan song

00:01:36.120 to a dying era, that Edwardian interwar era of the high ideals of British manners, of etiquette,

00:01:44.920 of fashion, of some feeling of actual confidence in British society at the time, even as Bertie,

00:01:54.260 Bertram Worcester, goes about and is just totally oblivious to all of the sort of social disturbances

00:02:02.200 that are going on around him as he sort of wanders through it all with blissful ignorance,

00:02:07.260 very self-absorbed in his own what seem to be quite trivial problems by comparison.

00:02:12.760 But having said all of that, it's not at all malicious, though it is indeed satirical.

00:02:17.760 You can tell it's been done with a lot of charm and a good degree of fondness for the former years of P.G. Woodhouse's life that he knew so well.

00:02:28.920 And so let's just talk a little bit about Woodhouse, shall we, to begin with.

00:02:32.440 So Pelham Grenville Woodhouse was born in 1881 in Guildford, as his mother was just visiting a sister there at the time.

00:02:44.720 And he was born slightly premature. And so he comes along as the third son of the family.

00:02:52.040 Although it has to be said, his life was, I mean, in many ways, it was quite typical for the time.

00:02:58.200 And this is something that we touched on when we talked about Kipling, when I covered Kim.

00:03:02.760 But Woodhouse was very much a product of empire. His father, Henry Ernest Woodhouse,

00:03:09.080 besides coming from a cadet branch of the Earls of Kimberley, which was a peerage that was created

00:03:16.120 in the 1860s, his father was also a magistrate in the British colony of Hong Kong. And so,

00:03:23.400 a lot like with Kipling and India, Woodhouse spent a lot of time away from his own parents.

00:03:29.160 He never really got to know his own parents in any great real sense.

00:03:34.260 So he was born in 81, immediately taken off to be in Hong Kong, where he spent the first

00:03:40.980 two years of his life very much in the care of a Chinese nurse.

00:03:45.560 And then at the age of two, along with his two elder brothers, he was sent back to England.

00:03:50.920 So that in that same way as Kipling, even though you're in an administrative position

00:03:57.780 for the British Empire, that you go back to England and you learn and discover something of

00:04:03.260 the motherland and why it's a bee's knees and why it's worth defending and all that good stuff.

00:04:10.900 And so though in Woodhouse going back to England, it wasn't quite as fraught with trauma

00:04:17.500 as it was for Kipling growing up in quite an oppressive household.

00:04:22.080 In this occasion, Woodhouse found himself being flopped about between all sorts of nannies and aunts and relatives.

00:04:31.940 And so, though it wasn't terrible, it certainly wasn't stable in any meaningful sense.

00:04:38.840 And this left Kipling with a great deal of time to allow his imagination to flourish.

00:04:44.860 From his earliest years, he always dreamed of becoming a writer, and he was a huge fan

00:04:51.460 of J.M. Barrie, of Kipling himself, of Dickens, of Arthur Conan Doyle, and there's certainly

00:04:59.040 something in the Jeeves and Worcester formula that is a little bit Doylesque in the way

00:05:05.620 that you always know that Holmes is going to solve the case at the end of the novel,

00:05:11.040 In the same way that you know that Jeeves is always going to bail out Bertie out of

00:05:16.200 whatever troubles he's in, the drama and the fun of it is in the how.

00:05:22.720 And so even though it's, you know, the Jeeves and Worcester stories have a very set formula

00:05:29.000 to them, they're never dull.

00:05:32.040 And that's something that even within this one book alone, which I suppose I should just

00:05:36.600 say as well. The inimitable Jeebs is not the first introduction to these characters. Jeebs

00:05:42.940 originally appeared in 1915 as part of a short story that was published in the Saturday Evening

00:05:48.820 Post called Extricating Young Gussy, and at that point was only a very, very small part. And then

00:05:55.000 over the next coming years, Jeebs found his way into becoming a fully formed character along with

00:06:02.220 Bertie and there was a collection of short stories called My Man Jeeves, which I believe was around

00:06:08.500 1919. But not all of those stories within that collection were actually Jeeves and Worcester

00:06:14.880 stories. Some of them focused on another character called Reggie Pepper. And so I've chosen the

00:06:20.700 Inimitable Jeeves because it was the first one when it was published in 93, sorry, in 1923,

00:06:26.780 to be entirely dedicated to the Bertie, Worcester, and the Reginald Jeeves characters.

00:06:34.820 And they are very much, you can tell, originally conceived of short stories,

00:06:39.180 so Woodhouse does quite an able job of sewing them together and giving them a bit of a through line.

00:06:45.560 And it all just adds to the drama and whimsy of the entire piece,

00:06:50.780 just watching Bertie just go from trouble to trouble,

00:06:55.560 watching Jeeves keep getting him out of them. And also as well in the comedy that comes from where

00:07:02.120 the relationship sours between the two of them a little bit, and Bertie kind of having to

00:07:09.160 strike out on his own with his very limited personal intelligence. It's very, very good,

00:07:15.480 and I'll look forward to saying more about it. But there is more to just say about Woodhouse as

00:07:20.680 well, because he did have a very, very interesting life. One thing to say is the fact that when he

00:07:26.040 was 12, Woodhouse was happy enough to go to Dulwich College in London. And he basically describes

00:07:32.920 his next few years, his teenage years, as just the most heavenly of his entire life. And I think it's

00:07:39.240 one of the reasons why you can certainly see as he was mingling with very affluent children from

00:07:46.440 affluent families and that sort of like boyhood camaraderie and the posh tricks that they'd all

00:07:52.680 get up to and the sort of lingo that the upper classes would speak with. A lot of this really 0.71

00:08:00.360 came to the fore for him here and he got a real taste of that. And you can feel all of that very

00:08:06.280 passionately expressed in the novels. The other thing as well is to say that when he was 19,

00:08:12.920 unlike his elder brothers, he wasn't able to go to Oxford. He had originally been hoping to go to

00:08:19.080 Oxford, but his father's pension after serving as a magistrate in Hong Kong had basically been

00:08:25.880 given to him in Indian rupees, which were of course not half as valuable against the exchange

00:08:32.280 of the British pound. And so they found that when it came to it, they simply didn't have the money

00:08:38.440 and the means to send young Pelham to Oxford as he'd been hoping to. Having said all of that,

00:08:44.920 Woodhouse approached it with a sort of flippant, oh, well, that's just what it is and just better

00:08:51.080 get on with things attitude that he seemed to have embraced throughout most of his life.

00:08:56.840 Even when he had, I mean, he had moments of genuine, remarkable renown and success,

00:09:03.960 and at some point was a true celebrity in the interwar period of British society.

00:09:11.780 And also as well in America as well, he had his first trip to America.

00:09:15.900 He'd always been fascinated by America and had a very romantic ideal of it

00:09:20.460 and ended up having his first trip to New York in 1904.

00:09:24.680 And it turned out to be as good as he'd hoped it would be.

00:09:27.740 And he had a really lovely time there.

00:09:29.600 And ever since then, his trips to America became more and more frequent.

00:09:33.960 In fact, in the second part of this novel, which I'll cover next week, Bertie actually does go off to New York as well, which is all very fun.

00:09:45.260 And he flops about with playwrights and theatergoers.

00:09:49.820 And that was a world that Woodhouse came to know very well in America.

00:09:54.000 In fact, he ended up climbing so high through the careers of writers and connections that he knew

00:10:00.500 that he ended up, towards the end of the 20s, even writing for Hollywood for a brief stint as well.

00:10:07.680 And so he was very, very successful in his own time.

00:10:11.540 But all of this, as he's becoming more unsuccessful, as more of these celebrated works and short stories

00:10:18.320 on Jeeves and Worcester are coming out and many other characters besides for many other works,

00:10:23.840 he was prolific. He wrote well over 80 novels or 80 works by the end of his life,

00:10:30.400 basically writing about a novel a year. Well, it all kind of came to a head in the

00:10:35.920 end of the 1930s when a somewhat minor event called World War II broke out and Woodhouse

00:10:43.680 at the time had been living in France. A lot of the reason for this was to get away from

00:10:49.560 the oppressive tax policies of Britain and America at the time. And so Woodhouse had

00:10:56.940 sent himself over to Northern France, where he was living a very peaceful life with his

00:11:02.040 wife at the time. And even though there had obviously been talk and indeed a declaration

00:11:08.780 of war and that the Nazis were on the march, Woodhouse thought he was perfectly safe in

00:11:16.480 France and that nothing would come of it because he put his trust in the Maginot Line.

00:11:24.580 Not to norm MacDonald it, but I don't know if any of y'all are history buffs, but the 0.75

00:11:29.280 Maginot Line didn't end up doing much of a good job in the end in stopping the German

00:11:34.440 invasion. And so as a consequence of this, Woodhouse found the Nazis at his door. And after

00:11:43.800 they came to realise what a celebrity they'd actually happened upon, living a very quiet

00:11:49.480 life in France, eventually he was taken back to Berlin and allowed to perform some radio

00:11:57.720 for British and American audiences. Now, these were not of a political nature in any way. In fact,

00:12:07.120 I will just read you a short excerpt from one of them where he simply says,

00:12:11.080 Young men starting out in life have often asked me, how can I become an internee? Well,

00:12:18.420 there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in La Torquay on the coast of France

00:12:23.340 and stay there until the Germans came along. 1.00

00:12:26.480 This is probably the best and simplest system. 1.00

00:12:29.180 You buy the villa and the Germans do the rest. 1.00

00:12:32.660 And a lot of the substance of these radio broadcasts 0.99

00:12:37.560 were very much in that very Woodhouse-ian sort of glibness and joviality.

00:12:43.060 But unfortunately on this occasion,

00:12:45.480 that kind of Woodhouse-ian humour didn't go down very well

00:12:49.900 with the British public right now,

00:12:51.760 given that these were being broadcast at a time when German-English relations were kind of at an

00:12:58.240 all-time low after the Battle of Britain. And of course, untold suffering had happened over not

00:13:06.180 just World War II, of course, but the decades between the Brits and the Germans. And so the

00:13:12.000 British public didn't take it very lightly that Woodhouse was now just being quite airy-fairy and 0.55

00:13:18.440 seemingly naive in just allowing the Germans to broadcast for him. And so all of this really

00:13:27.320 soured things. And as a result of it, Woodhouse never actually returned to Britain ever again

00:13:34.520 even for fear of actual prosecution, though Orwell and many other figures will come to his defense

00:13:41.960 in saying that in desperate circumstances of the time, it was excusable to be angry at what Woodhouse

00:13:48.280 did, but to go on denouncing him three or four years later and more, to let an impression

00:13:54.120 remain that he acted with conscious treachery, is not excusable.

00:13:59.480 But nonetheless, the stigma stayed with Woodhouse very much till the end of his life in 1975,

00:14:05.480 though fortunately for him, the Queen knighting him just a few months before he passed away

00:14:12.900 at the age of 93, did do something to rejuvenate his public image.

00:14:21.300 But all of this is to say that his works never stopped being adored throughout his life,

00:14:26.700 and he never stopped being successful, and he never stopped writing.

00:14:30.500 His works were, and still continue to be, adored for the classic English character that

00:14:38.780 they have in many ways of an almost picturesque idealistic era of Englishness and confidence in

00:14:46.600 society. And, you know, a civilization that was kind of firing on all cylinders in a way where

00:14:53.460 everyone had a place to get on with whatever was their particular inkling, you know, whether that

00:15:01.200 was Bertie Worcester's being a part of the idle rich and, you know, dining at the Ritz and visiting

00:15:06.840 country houses and pottering off to France and enjoying not really having any meaningful

00:15:14.640 aspirations in life, or as well, those of the lower orders who also find themselves

00:15:22.040 being quite celebrated in Woodhouse's novels as well. There's something for everyone in

00:15:29.980 these novels. And so with that, let's start talking about the first half of this. I've

00:15:36.560 split it into two and I'll do the second half next week. Just because in the book actually

00:15:42.440 being a collection of short stories, it is, even though it's quite brisk and you skip

00:15:47.820 along with it, it's very eventful because it's constantly moving on to new things.

00:15:52.920 So I split it up. We'll talk about the first half this week and there's already plenty

00:15:57.780 in there to say. And so let's get on with it.

00:16:07.360 During those last precious decades of British confidence, one could go about in the dwindling

00:16:12.960 years of polite society as what was termed the idle rich. The rich pleasure of London,

00:16:19.600 with its casinos and restaurants, its parks and performances, all waiting to be embraced by men

00:16:26.320 like Bertie Worcester, the resident of flat 3A Barclay Mansions, Barclay Square, London W1.

00:16:34.720 Mr. Worcester is an unrepentant bachelor, much to the chagrin of his tyrannous relations,

00:16:40.960 but with his eminently capable valet, Jeeves, by his side, he never finds himself in trouble for

00:16:47.600 long. Morning, Jeeves, I said. Good morning, sir, said Jeeves. He put the good old cup of tea

00:16:54.880 softly on the table by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too

00:17:01.760 hot, not too sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop spilt in the

00:17:08.480 saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect. I've said it before

00:17:15.360 and I'll say it again. I mean to say, take just one small instance. Every other valet I've ever had

00:17:22.400 used to barge into my room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing much misery. But Jeeves

00:17:28.240 seems to know when I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats in with the cup

00:17:33.440 exactly two minutes after I come to life. Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day.

00:17:39.520 Just as a day appears as though it's going to be roaringly cheerful, Jeeds informs his employer

00:17:44.800 that Bingo Little, Bertie's friend from his school days, wishes to meet him to discuss an

00:17:50.480 urgent matter. When the two gentlemen are later together, Bingo giddily tells his pal that he's

00:17:57.200 love. You'd better come along and meet her at lunch, he said, looking at his watch. A ripe

00:18:03.660 suggestion, I said. Where are you meeting her? At the Ritz. Near the Ritz. He was geographically

00:18:12.200 accurate. Before long, the two are burrowed into a good, honest, working-class tea room,

00:18:18.500 which engenders a great amount of distress in the aloof Bertie. Just as the two find themselves sat

00:18:23.960 down a plain and pretty waitress comes to take their order. You see I'm wearing the tie, said 0.59

00:18:30.140 Bingo. It suits you beautiful, said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie

00:18:36.880 like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the muzzard, regardless of their 0.97

00:18:42.100 age and sex. But poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification and smirked in the 0.99

00:18:48.520 most gruesome manner. Well, what's it going to be today? asked the girl, introducing the business

00:18:55.060 touch into the conversation. Bingo studied the menu devotedly. I'll have a cup of cocoa,

00:19:02.460 cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruitcake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie. I gazed at the

00:19:09.840 man revolted, that he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of

00:19:15.920 insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick.

00:19:20.000 Or how about a bit of hot steak pudding with a sparkling limado to wash it down, said Bingo.

00:19:26.540 You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. 1.00

00:19:31.280 This chappy before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, 1.00

00:19:37.900 was a man I had seen in happier days telling the head waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted 1.00

00:19:43.320 the chef to prepare his saufreté au gourmet au champignon, and saying he would jolly well

00:19:49.120 sling it back if it wasn't just right.

00:19:51.560 Ghastly.

00:19:52.560 A roll in butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been

00:19:56.800 specially prepared by the nastier minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a

00:20:02.200 particular grudge against, so I chose them and Mabel hopped it.

00:20:06.380 Bingo is insistent that he is head over heels for Mabel.

00:20:09.860 The snag is that his uncle, Mort Milittle, is sure to cut off his allowance if he marries a commoner.

00:20:16.120 But Bingo appeals to the school days and old times, and Bertie agrees to find a way to persuade Old Little.

00:20:23.260 The inimitable Jeeves devises a strategy.

00:20:26.360 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters, head to our website where you can find more.

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 04, 2026

PREVIEW： Chronicles #53 ｜ The Inimitable Jeeves

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