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1001 Classic Short Stories & Tales

EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE A BERTIE WOOSTER/JEEVES STORY FROM P.G. WODEHOUSE

1001 Classic Short Stories & Tales

Jon Hagadorn

Fiction, Arts

4.21.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"Extricating Young Gussie" is a short story by the British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United States in the 18 September 1915 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and in the United Kingdom in the January 1916 edition of The Strand Magazine.[1] It was included in the collection The Man with Two Left Feet (1917).[2]

The story features the first appearance of two of Wodehouse's most popular and enduring characters, the impeccable valet Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster, though there are some differences between this story and later stories in which they appear. Jeeves only plays a very small role in this story and Bertie's surname, which is not explicitly given, appears to be Mannering-Phipps, as that is the name of his cousin Gussie, whose father is Bertie's paternal uncle. Bertie's imperious Aunt Agatha, a recurring character, is also introduced in this story.

While Jeeves is only a minor character in this story, he plays a larger role in the next published story in which he appears, "The Artistic Career of Corky" (originally titled "Leave It to Jeeves"), which was first published in February 1916. The first meeting of Jeeves and Bertie was chronicled in the November 1916 short story "Jeeves Takes Charge". 

Plot
In Bertie's flat in London, around half past eleven, Jeeves wakes Bertie up telling him that his Aunt Agatha has come to see him. She is distressed that Augustus "Gussie" Mannering-Phipps, her nephew and Bertie's cousin living in New York City, has fallen for a girl named Ray Denison who is a vaudeville performer. Concerned about the family's prestige, Aunt Agatha does not want Gussie to marry a vaudeville performer like his late father did, though Gussie's mother Julia learned to be aristocratic. Aunt Agatha demands that Bertie go to New York and keep Gussie from marrying Ray.

 

Check out all our PG Wodehouse stories at our website category link: https://www.bestof1001stories.com/show/1001-classic-short-stories-tales/categories 

 

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back to everyone to 1001 classic short stories and tales.

0:17.7

This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn.

0:23.8

And another PG-Wodhouse story,

0:30.5

this one, a Bertie Worcester and Jeeve story called Extricating Young Gussie. Hope you enjoy it.

0:38.3

Occasionally, I start my first morning read with a blooper. And I save this one for you.

0:39.4

You'll catch it at the end.

0:45.7

There, in seven words, you have a complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha.

0:49.7

I could go on indefinitely about brutality and lack of consideration.

0:55.7

I merely say that she routed me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small hours.

1:02.9

It can't have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me out of the dreamless, and broke the news.

1:05.7

A Mrs. Gregson to see you, sir.

1:11.9

I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed and got into a dressing gown.

1:12.8

I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know that if she had come to see me, she was going to see

1:18.0

me.

1:18.7

That's the sort of woman she is.

1:21.7

She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space.

1:26.2

When I came in, she looked at me in that darn critical way

1:29.1

that always makes me feel as if I had gelatin where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is one of

1:35.2

those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must have been something like her.

1:40.9

She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson, a battered little chap beyond the stock exchange.

1:46.8

She bosses my cousin, Gussie Manoring Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law,

1:52.6

Gusy's mother. And worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating fish,

...

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