Right Ho, Jeeves Book Summary and Study Guide

Bertie Wooster, the narrator and protagonist, is a 20-something English gentleman. He is very wealthy, idle and unemployed, and spends his spare time at the Drones Club, or with his friends, or visiting relatives and old classmates at their country estates.

Jeeves, his manservant or "valet", is a gentleman's gentleman. That means that Jeeves is always in a suit, speaks very correctly, knows etiquette backwards and forwards, and understands how to be the perfect personal assistant. He irons Bertie's clothes (and frequently tries to choose them), mixes Bertie's cocktails, and plays gourmet chef at small dinner parties. While Bertie is generally dim-witted and naïve, Jeeves is ever-watchful and vigilant, highly intelligent and fond of his foolish master, and hence always looking out for him and manipulating him at the same time.

Right Ho, Jeeves is set at one of the aforementioned country estates - the manor called Brinkley Court, owned by Bertie's aunt Dahlia. After a relaxing and uneventful holiday in Cannes, a tanned and happy Bertie returns to London. His old schoolmate, Augustus "Gussie" Fink Nottle, has formed a romantic attachment to the dreamy-eyed, spaced-out, and bizarre Madeline Bassett, one of the young ladies in their social circle, and Gussie has been seeking Jeeves' advice. Bertie's return to London is interrupted, however, by an urgent letter from Aunt Dahlia. Terrible things are underway at Brinkley Court - Aunt Dahlia has lost a substantial sum of money (five hundred pounds - which is worth much more today) at gambling, and on top of that, Bertie's cousin Angela, the daughter of Aunt Dahlia, is feuding with her fiancé Tuppy Glossop. This is because Tuppy calls her silly and disparages her taste in art, dogs, and everything else. So this spat leads to Angela breaking off their engagement.

Bertie is determined to put things to right, and is confident as always that he has the answer to every problem - Gussie's problem, Tuppy's problem, and Aunt Dalhia's problem. So he motors down to Brinkley Court with Jeeves at his side, and immediately advises Aunt Dahlia that her wisest course of action would be guilt-trip her husband. He tells her to do this by refusing to eat. He advises the same course of action to Tuppy Glossop, convinced that Tuppy can guilt-trip Angela into accepting him back, and so insists that Tuppy must also go without eating like Aunt Dahlia. This has no effect on the intended parties, and only results in Aunt Dahlia's celebrated celebrity French chef, Anatole, becoming extremely offended when his dishes are sent back and quitting in a huff.

Meanwhile, when Bertie walks Madeline out into the spacious gardens of Brinkley Court and attempts to convince Madeline that Gussie loves her, he ends up accidentally making Madeline believe that it is Bertie himself who is in love with her. Madeline blushes and giggles and tells Bertie that he is very sweet and cute, and that she always suspected that he loved her, but that it cannot be because she feels nothing for him. Mortified, Bertie attempts to explain, but she won't hear it.

Later on, Gussie manages to get up the nerve to propose to Madeline and she demurely accepts, only to break the engagement in indignation when Gussie delivers an embarrassing speech at the local school. Crestfallen, Gussie then proposes to Angela and she accepts only to annoy Tuppy, whom she has still not forgiven. It is at this moment that Jeeves steps in and masterfully mends the bridges between the true lovers through a series of forged letters, in which Angela seems to get a letter from Tuppy avowing his love, and Madeline appears to get one from Gussie. This leaves both girls overcome and they rush to their respective men, declaring their delight and renewing the engagements. Meanwhile, Jeeves advises Aunt Dahlia to say that her money was stolen, ensuring that Uncle Tom replaces it without any further ado. All is well again.

Like all Wodehouse stories, Right Ho, Jeeves is funny, gently sarcastic, and very good at mocking the upper classes of England.

Best part of story, including ending: I loved the perfect dynamic between Jeeves and Bertie. They have hilarious banter and a real "bromance", and they work as a duo as Bertie is sort of a bumbling idiot and a foil to the smooth, slick, suave Jeeves.

Best scene in story: The part where drunk, hungover Gussie Fink Nottle is distributing school prizes and mixing them up and calling people by the wrong name.

Opinion about the main character: Like I'll be forced to say in all the Bertie and Jeeves books (I've read 99% of them since I started in high school), it's really hard to dislike Bertie. He's wonderful and sweet and amiable.

Bertie Wooster has just returned from Cannes after a holiday with his Aunt Dahlia, her daughter Angela, and Angela's friend Madeleine Bassett. His friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, in love with Madeleine, is advised by Jeeves, Bertie's ever-resourceful ‘gentleman's personal gentleman', to accept her invitation to a fancy dress ball, but Gussie ruins things by forgetting the address. Meanwhile Bertie is in bed one morning nursing a severe hangover when Dahlia appears, and orders him to come and stay with her at her home, Brinkley Court, so he can give the prizes to the boys at the local school at the end of term. She knows he will make a fool of himself, but she has lost a large sum while gambling at Monte Carlo and needs a good laugh. Recoiling in horror, Bertie sends Gussie to deputise for him. However he ends up going to Brinkley anyway, to find that his cousin Angela has broken off her engagement with Tuppy Glossop, and Gussie has fallen out with Madeline.

There are inevitable romantic misunderstandings, family arguments, cooks threatening to hand in their notice, and a hilarious scene when the teetotal Gussie, his orange juice well laced with alcohol, ends up presenting the school prizes, and insults everyone in the process. The result is total uproar, until Jeeves comes to the rescue.

The review of this Book prepared by John Van der Kiste