Damned obsessed slasher demands timelines and story titles.

[derien.livejournal.com]

So, I used the link to this post which puple_pen provided, and began to read Extricating Young Gussie, expecting, of course, that this would be our much beloved Gussie Fink-Nottle.  Far from it!  This is Bertie's 'cousin,' Gussie Mannering-Phipps.  But, wait, what sort of cousin is this? 

She [Agatha] bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson, a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin, Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie's mother.

His mother is Bertie's Aunt's husband's sister.  Isn't there some sort of a rule that if you need to use more than two apostrophe 's'es used in describing someone's relationship it's okay to marry them?  This would be cousins by marriage only, in no way blood-related.  In fact, 'cousin' seems often to be used as a catch-all phrase which Bertie uses to indicate some vague sort of familial connection. 

And then I began to think too hard about the question of Florence Craye, who I remembered being called Bertie's cousin.  I distinctly recall reading that story, wherein Bertie refers to her as a cousin, greets her with "Darling!" and an attempt at a hug, because he likes her quite well even if he doesn't want her to mould him.  And he takes her out to a club which gets raided, and trips a police officer who is chasing her so that she can get away.  Please please please tell me I'm not mixing fanon with canon, because now I can't find that damned story, and it was upon his hugginess and use of 'darling' that I based his demonstrably affectionate nature in "Absence of Madeline."  Which story is it? 

So,  I went back to the inestimable innocentsmith's comment to refresh my memory, and found:

Isn't Lord Worplesdon Florence's father? Percy Craye, the somethingth Earl of Worplesdon, who later marries Aunt Agatha.

Sooo... at some point Spenser Gregson needs to die, or divorce Agatha, and she has to begin being referred to as Mrs. Percy Craye. 

Has anyone ever tried to compile a timeline of where the stories belong in relation to each other?  I know I have some huge, gaping holes in my knowledge, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for. 

Comments

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Um, no you didn't dream or read fan-fic on Bertie being arrested in a night club - it's in Season IV of the TV series (Either known as "Arrested in A Night Club" or "The Delayed Arrival") which I think is based on "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit".

Hmm.

[hmcgirl.livejournal.com]

Do you know which aunt is Betrie's Father's sister? I get so confused sometimes, all these Aunts, who can keep 'em straight?

[derien.livejournal.com]

Far as I know both Agatha and Daliah are sisters to Bertie's father.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Aunt Agatha would go from being Mrs. Gregson, which she is called in some early stories, to Lady Worplesdon, not Mrs. Craye. Spencer Gregson dies before the first of the Jeeves & Wooster stories, I believe, or at least I don't remember him being on scene.

It is indeed "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" where Bertie takes Florence to a nightclub and trips the policeman, though I don't think affection had much to do with it. Florence essentially demands that he take her, and chivalry prompts the tripping of the policeman.

I keep promising myself that one of these days I will create a whole family tree for these people.

[derien.livejournal.com]

It is indeed "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" where Bertie takes Florence to a nightclub and trips the policeman, though I don't think affection had much to do with it. Florence essentially demands that he take her, and chivalry prompts the tripping of the policeman.


Well, yes, but he does greet her with "Darling!" and an attempt to hug her. :)

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

When does he call her darling? I did a quick check of the first two meetings in "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" and didn't find it, though it could occur later. Or is this a TV vs. book thing?

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Bertie is certainly in love with Florence Craye in one of the earlier books - the one where he runs into her in a bookshop. He doesn't always get into engagements by bad luck, you know! (Though it is always good luck that he gets out of them...)

Brain has unfortunately switched off at this point, so I will endeavour to find later.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Eh? Bertie runs into Florence in "Jeeves/Joy in the Morning." If he's in love he hides it well:

I emitted a sharp gurgle, and shied like a startled mustang. It was old Worplesdon's daughter, Florence Craye.
*snip*
Briefly, then, the reason why this girl's popping up had got in amongst me in this fashion was taht we had once been engaged to be married, and not so dashed long ago, either. And though it all came out all right in the end, the thing being broken off and self-saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, it had been an extraordinarily narrow squeak and the memory remained green. The mere mention of her name was still enough to make me call for a couple of quick ones, so you can readily appreciate my agitation at bumping into her like this absolutely in the flesh.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

He is in love with her at the beginning of the short story where Jeeves is hired, after Jeeves breaks it up Bertie acknowledges that it was for the best.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Can't be a TV vs. Book thing, as I've hardly seen any of the shows.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Well, aw shucks, I'll just have to re-read (or re-re-re-re-re-read) "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" again. How terrible! *grin*

[smokingthings.livejournal.com]

He's in love with her in "Jeeves Takes Charge," the first story. And although she is his cousin, it's explained in "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" that they're cousins by marriage, Florence's father having married Aunt Agatha, who is Bertie's father's sister. I don't know when Spenser Gregson dies, but I don't think we ever see him.

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

*beams foolishly at being called inestimable*

I think the novels are pretty much sequential, so if you look at the date of publication you can go from that. That's how I've got them all lined up on my bookshelf, anyway. (I swear I am not generally this nuts. At least, not nuts in this particular nitpicky way) The tricky part comes when you try to intersperse the short stories, as they don't usually have helpful little dates attached, and even if they did, that wouldn't necessarily correspond to their place in book-time.

"Extricating Young Gussie" was the first of the J/W stories, but Jeeves barely has a cameo and Bertie seems to be surnamed "Mannering-Phipps." Having realized he was onto a good thing, Plum strip-mined several older stories for plots and characters. There's a Florence Craye in a Reggie Pepper story, a middle-aged version who lives in Boston (those stories are all set in America, and Reggie Pepper is a sort of Ur-Bertie, sans Jeeves and nominally American with English speech patterns) and bosses around her family. It's never really adequately explained why she can boss Reggie, and I think Plum realized this and gave her some serious revamping so she'd be able to make more serious claims on Bertie. (Trivia--the first Florence also had a brother Edwin, middle-aged, who wanted to marry a palm-reader. Florence sent Reggie to break the romance up, and he of course muffed it completely.)

"Jeeves Takes Charge" is definitely the beginning of the Saga. Bertie's engaged to (new, younger, glamorous) Lady Florence, who he's quite keen on just then. Wonderful profile, ash-blonde hair, and whatnot. They aren't related, though their families have long been friendly; her father Lord Worplesdon is an old crony of Bertie's uncle Willoughby, who they're visiting. Bertie had to go to London to get a new valet, but returns to his uncle's country house with Jeeves in tow and greets her with a "Darling!" and attempted embrace, which she sidesteps. At the end of the story, though Jeeves's machinations, she breaks off their engagement; it takes Bertie a little while to appreciate what a relief this is, but after a night's sleep he realizes how throughly she would have put him through the wringer. In subsequent stories, Florence features as a threat because she assumes he's still in love with her and would be glad to pick up where they left off...which is emphatically not the case, of course.

Florence is my favorite of all of Bertie's Dreadful Fiancees because she's at once the worst (as Bertie says on more than one occasion) and also, in later books especially, shows the most potential for being an interesting person. She can be very quick-witted, if only in insulting people, and she does seem to be genuinely attracted to Bertie. The besetting sin of all the Woosterverse antagonists is self-absorption, which she's got in spades; what she needs is perspective and someone who will stand up to her and force her to develop her latent sense of humor. Not that fiesty women need to be overmastered by strong men as a general principle, you understand, but in Wodehouse the answer to everyone's problem is always the right pairing. She just needs to leave Bertie alone, since he's (a)completely wrong for her and (b) found his own perfect match in Jeeves. [/soapbox]

Anyway. Lord Worplesdon teams up with Aunt Agatha just before the onset of "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit," to create the ultimate matchup of Relatives Bertie Wants to Avoid. They had both devoured their previous mates; I don't think we're ever told anything about Florence's mother but Spencer Gregson was some kind of wealthy industrialist IIRC, and spawned young Thos., Bertie's cousin who he periodically has to take to improving plays and so on. Thos. (Thomas, that is) shows up in "The Love that Purefies," ruining Dahlia and Bertie's repose by being infatuated with Greta Garbo (it's complicated).

[derien.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, I think I get it, now... I've had to go through some spins to get here, because I was all turned around by thinking this was the Wooster family we were talking about.

Agatha's maiden name would be Mannering-Phipps, she'd be sister to Cuthbert, who is the deceased husband of Julia. Cuthbert and Agatha are siblings to unnamed father of Bertie Mannering-Phipps.

Best to just forget about that story. Or pretend it's an Alternate Universe.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Y'know what all this teaches me? That Wodehouse's writing style was the result of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of attempts. Lots and lots of practice. He didn't produce all good stuff - believe me, quite a good deal of what he wrote is not nearly as good - but he produced so much stuff that some good came of it.

If I want to be successful I can't sit around thinking out my thoughts so carefully. I need to just write and write and write some more.

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

If you want a real canon headache, though, try and figure out when all this relates to Lord Worplesdon taking off for France. In "Jeeves Takes Charge," Bertie tells us Lord W. came down to breakfast one morning, lifted a cover, said "Eggs! Eggs! Damn all eggs!" in an overwrought voice, and legged it for the Continent, never to return to the bosom of his family. Except that he must have returned, since he marries Agatha who would never tolerate an expatriate husband. So, logically, Bertie must have started writing his memoirs, beginning with "J. Takes C.", sometime before the events of "J. and the F. S." Q. E. D.

And oh, my God, it's four in the morning. I've got to get to bed. Hope some of this is helpful, or at least entertaining.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Wow! Yay! All of it's VERY interesting and informative, thank you! :)

("Four in the morning? Where's it four in the morning?" I asked myself. 'California,' answered your LJ info. How funny. I got up almost 2 hours ago, and you're just going to bed.:))