The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938) is a farcical tale of romantic mix-ups, grand larceny, extortion, and other antics at a posh country house in Gloucestershire, England. This is the third of P. G. Wodehouse’s novels featuring upper-class London bachelor Bertie Wooster and his masterful valet, Jeeves. Beginning with the 1916 short story “Jeeves Takes Charge,” Wodehouse featured Jeeves and Wooster in 35 short stories and 11 novels over six decades, and they’re among the most beloved characters in English comic literature. “Jeeves” has even become a generic term for a valet or butler.

Originally a writer for the theater, Wodehouse (1881-1975) drew on stage farce techniques (slapstick, verbal dexterity, misunderstandings, escalating confusion) to orchestrate his carefully plotted Jeeves stories, which are all set in a mostly unchanging Edwardian milieu of private clubs and large estates. Typically, the lazy, frivolous, but good-hearted Wooster, through a misunderstanding or an obligation to help out a friend, blunders into one “sticky wicket” after another—arrest, social embarrassment, an unwanted betrothal—from which his valet, the inestimable Jeeves, rescues him. The social satire inherent in this dynamic (feckless master, ingenious servant) derives partly from two popular works of satirical humor, J. M. Barrie’s 1902 play The Admirable Crichton and Harry Leon Wilson’s 1915 novel Ruggles of Red Gap, both featuring butlers whose intelligence, competence, and strength of character far outshine their masters’. The famous partnership of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson has been cited as another influence, notably by Wodehouse himself. What elevates the Jeeves canon into a class of its own is its celebrated wordplay and verbal wit—a saving grace of its fatuous but eloquent narrator, Bertie Wooster.

Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories have been adapted into plays, movies, stage musicals, and a much-admired BBC series starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. In 1975, shortly before his death, P. G. Wodehouse was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to British culture.

This guide refers to the 2011 W. W. Norton & Company paperback edition of The Code of the Woosters.

Plot Summary

At the behest of both his aunt and an old school chum, Bertie Wooster, an affluent young man in 1930s England, leaves his London lodgings for Totleigh Towers, a large country manor. His Aunt Dahlia, whose husband collects silver, wants him to steal a silver cow-shaped creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett, the house’s owner and a rival collector. Coincidentally, Wooster’s old friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, who is engaged to Sir Watkyn’s daughter Madeline, begs him to come to Totleigh Towers to help settle a “misunderstanding” between himself and his fiancée. Wooster feels the urgency to do so because, due to an earlier misunderstanding, Watkyn’s flighty daughter believes Wooster is a suitor for her hand and might bind him to his “promise” should her engagement to Gussie fall through.

However, because of yet another misunderstanding, Sir Watkyn, a former judge and now Justice of the Peace, believes that Wooster is a chronic thief; and Watkyn’s thuggish friend Roderick Spode, the leader of a British fascist organization, vows to watch Wooster closely during his visit. Soon after his arrival, Wooster learns that the “rift” between Gussie and Madeline has been resolved: She thought she had caught him in a compromising position with her cousin, Stephanie “Stiffy” Byng, but was mistaken. Unfortunately, Gussie has lost a small notebook containing insulting descriptions of Watkyn, Spode, and others, written as therapy to make himself more assertive. Worse, it has fallen into the hands of Stiffy, who wants to use it to coerce Wooster into stealing her uncle’s cow creamer (the same one coveted by his Aunt Dahlia) so that it can be heroically rescued by Harold “Stinker” Pinker, the curate she wants to marry, and thereby endear him to her father. Complicating things further, Aunt Dahlia arrives at Totleigh Towers with the news that her husband is planning to trade their beloved chef Anatole to Sir Watkyn for the cow creamer. She insists that Wooster steal the piece at once and suggests using extortion to get around Roderick Spode. Jeeves learns, from the secret annals of his private valets’ club, that Spode has a dark secret connected to the name “Eulalie.” Meanwhile, Madeline has broken off her engagement with Gussie yet again, after catching him fondling Stiffy’s leg—a (failed) attempt to find the missing notebook. In response, Roderick Spode, who sees himself as Madeline’s protector, vows to “thrash” Gussie. However, Wooster unleashes the name “Eulalie” on Spode, instantly cowing him.

He and Jeeves attempt to search Stiffy’s room for the notebook but are cornered by her fierce dog. Upon her return, Stiffy tells them that she broke off her engagement with Harold because the curate refused to steal the helmet of a local police officer against whom she holds a grudge. Just before she can reveal the notebook’s whereabouts, however, Harold appears in the window with the stolen helmet. Triumphantly, Stiffy renews her demand that Wooster steal Sir Watkyn’s cow creamer so that Harold can play the hero. Jeeves suggests a different plan for “sweetening” Sir Watkyn toward Harold: Wooster himself should ask the old man for Stiffy’s hand—after which, almost any other prospect (even Harold “Stinker” Pinker) will seem golden. The subterfuge works, and Stiffy reveals the notebook’s hiding place: her uncle’s cow creamer. However, Madeline fails to find it there and thus doubts Wooster’s story about Gussie’s innocence. It turns out that Spode found it and has read Gussie’s eloquent views about him. Wooster, resorting again to “Eulalie,” saves his school chum from a beating and confiscates the notebook, handing it over to Gussie, who runs to show it to Madeline. However, Sir Watkyn, intending to take a bath, discovers Gussie’s colony of live newts in his tub and washes them down the drain, precipitating a violent quarrel. Gussie, running out of insults, hands his scabrous notebook to Sir Watkyn, unwittingly dooming his engagement to Madeline.

Shortly afterward, a “dim figure” is seen stealing Sir Watkyn’s cow creamer. The pursuing officer (the same one whose helmet Harold stole) is assaulted by a second dim figure—Harold, who was never told that Stiffy’s plans had changed. The thief, Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia, takes the creamer straight to Wooster’s room. This is bad timing because his room is about to be searched by Watkyn and the police for both the creamer and the helmet. Luckily, Gussie, desperate to escape the house, insists on lowering himself out of Wooster’s window on knotted sheets. While assisting him out the window, Jeeves places the creamer in his suitcase. However, as Gussie escapes with the creamer, Jeeves discovers the stolen helmet in Wooster’s room, where Stiffy left it. Stiffy enters and pleads with Wooster to take the “rap” for her. Jeeves, however, suggests dropping the helmet out the window. Unfortunately, Sir Watkyn’s butler witnesses the helmet’s defenestration and brings it straight back to Wooster, just as Sir Watkyn reluctantly apologizes to him. Wooster is confined to his room under house arrest, to be booked in jail the next morning. Moreover, Watkyn puts the kibosh on Stiffy’s engagement because of Harold’s attack on the officer. All of Wooster’s plans have gone awry, and he now seems fated for both prison and (worse) matrimony.

Aunt Dahlia agrees to trade her beloved chef to Watkyn if he drops the charges against her nephew, but Wooster refuses to allow it. Finally, Jeeves saves him from prison by invoking the name “Eulalie” to extort a false confession of helmet theft from Spode and suggests that Wooster threaten Sir Watkyn with legal action for defamation and false arrest unless he blesses both Madeline and Stiffy’s betrothals. Safe in bed, Wooster begs Jeeves to violate his club’s rules and tell him the dark secret of “Eulalie.” Jeeves, in exchange for Wooster’s promise to go on a “Round-the-World cruise,” shares that Eulalie is a ladies’ underwear brand that Spode, when not leading fascist rallies, secretly designs and sells.