Editing Bertie Wooster (section)

==Relationships==
===Jeeves===
{{See also|Jeeves#Relationship with Bertie Wooster}}
When Bertie Wooster catches his valet Meadowes stealing his silk socks among other things, he sacks him and sends for another from the agency. Jeeves arrives and mixes Bertie a hangover cure. The cure is remarkably effective, and Bertie engages Jeeves immediately.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1925], ''Carry On, Jeeves'', chapter 1, pp. 11–13.</ref> Thereafter, Bertie happily cedes much of the control of his life to the competent Jeeves, despite the occasional clashes that sometimes occur "when two men of iron will live in close association", according to Bertie.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1938], ''The Code of the Woosters'', chapter 1, p. 8.</ref> These clashes generally occur because Bertie insists on wearing a new jacket, tie, or some other item that Jeeves disapproves of, though Bertie invariably agrees to give up the item after Jeeves saves him from trouble.

===Family===
Due to the volume of stories and time span over which Wodehouse wrote them, there are a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in the information given about his relatives.  Bertie and several of his relations appear in the early semi-canonical short story "[[Extricating Young Gussie]]". In that story the family name is Mannering-Phipps, not Wooster, and the story has been excluded from most collections of Jeeves and Wooster material, even though the incidents in that story are referenced in later stories.

The family members who make an appearance in the most Jeeves stories are Bertie's [[Aunt Dahlia]] (7 short stories, 7 novels) and [[Aunt Agatha]] (8 short stories). Aunt Dahlia is friendly and good-natured while Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though both make demands of Bertie. Bertie feels obliged to follow their whims, often getting in trouble doing so. Aunt Dahlia's husband [[Tom Travers]] and children [[Angela Travers|Angela]] and [[Bonzo Travers]] play important roles. Spenser Gregson, Aunt Agatha's first husband, does not play a major role, but their son Thomas "Thos" Gregson and later her second husband [[Percy Craye, Earl of Worplesdon]] appear in the stories.

Aside from Aunts Dahlia and Agatha, Bertie Wooster's father had other siblings. In "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie's Uncle Cuthbert is described as the "late head of the family", but it is said his son Gussie has no title; Cuthbert's widow is Bertie's Aunt Julia. Another uncle is [[Willoughby Wooster|Uncle Willoughby]], upon whom Bertie is initially financially dependent. One of Bertie's uncles, the late [[Henry Wooster]], was the husband of Bertie's Aunt Emily; [[Claude and Eustace Wooster|Claude and Eustace]] are their twin sons and Bertie's cousins. In "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", Bertie takes a present for another of Aunt Emily's sons, Harold, who has just turned six, but, embarrassed at the relatively inexpensive gift he had bought, Bertie wrenches his Uncle James's card off a toy aeroplane, replacing it with his own.<ref>Carry On, Jeeves</ref> Bertie's Uncle George is [[Lord Yaxley]], so if he inherited that title he is likely to be Bertie's eldest living uncle, and Bertie's paternal grandfather may have held the title as well. However, the relative ages of Bertie's father and remaining uncles are not delineated, so it is unclear whether Bertie or one of his male cousins is in line to inherit the peerage. It is theoretically possible that the title was a life peerage under the [[Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876]], but unlikely as Uncle George is described as having devoted his life to food and drink.

In the story "[[Bertie Changes His Mind]]", Bertie mentions a sister who has three daughters, referred to by Jeeves as [[List of Jeeves characters#Mrs Scholfield|Mrs Scholfield]], though his sister and nieces are not mentioned again.

====List of relatives====
Bertie Wooster has many relatives who appear or are mentioned in the stories. Three other possible relatives (Cuthbert and Julia Mannering-Phipps and their son Gussie) appear or are mentioned in "[[Extricating Young Gussie]]", though in this story Bertie's surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps. It is not shown in later stories if the three relatives are renamed Wooster. In his book ''Who's Who in Wodehouse'', Daniel Garrison suggests that the protagonist of "Extricating Young Gussie", Bertie Mannering-Phipps, is a prototype of the later Bertie Wooster.<ref>Garrison (1991), p. 111.</ref> Richard Usborne writes that Bertie Wooster does appear in "Extricating Young Gussie" though his last name is Mannering-Phipps in the story.<ref>Usborne (2003), p. 73.</ref> In the book ''Wodehouse in Woostershire'', it is suggested that Bertie's grandmother was married twice, first to a Mannering-Phipps and then to a Wooster with the title Lord Yaxley.<ref>Ring & Jaggard (1999), pp. 161–163, 275–276.</ref> Due to the uncertainty surrounding the Mannering-Phipps family, they are listed with asterisks below.

Some marriages occur during the course of the stories. Bertie's uncle Lord Yaxley marries Maud Wilberforce as a result of the events of "[[Indian Summer of an Uncle]]",<ref>Ring & Jaggard (1999), pp. 278–279.</ref> and Bertie's aunt Agatha Gregson marries Lord Worplesdon sometime before the events of ''[[Joy in the Morning (Wodehouse novel)|Joy in the Morning]]''.<ref>Ring & Jaggard (1999), p. 296.</ref>

Bertie Wooster's relatives include:<ref>Ring & Jaggard (1999), pp. 132–133, 275–276, 295–296.</ref>

{{Columns-list|
* Unnamed parents (deceased)
* [[List of Jeeves characters#Mrs Scholfield|Mrs Scholfield]] (sister; no first name given)
** Three unnamed nieces
* [[Dahlia Travers]] (aunt)
** [[Tom Travers]] (uncle by marriage)
** In the short story "Clustering Round Young Bingo" (1925) Tom Travers is presented as Bertie's uncle and Dahlia Travers as marrying into the family. 
** [[Angela Travers]] (cousin)
** [[Bonzo Travers]] (cousin)
** George Travers (uncle)
* [[Agatha Gregson]] (aunt)
** Spenser Gregson (uncle by marriage; deceased)
** [[List of Jeeves characters#Thomas Gregson|Thomas Gregson]] (cousin)
** [[Lord Worplesdon]] (uncle by marriage)
** [[Florence Craye]] (step-cousin)
** [[Edwin Craye]] (step-cousin)
* [[George Wooster|George Wooster, Lord Yaxley]] (uncle)
** Maud Wilberforce Wooster, Lady Yaxley (aunt by marriage)
* [[Henry Wooster]] (uncle; deceased)
** [[Emily Wooster]] (aunt by marriage)
** [[Claude and Eustace Wooster]] (twin cousins)
** Harold Wooster (cousin)
* [[List of Jeeves characters#Uncle Willoughby|Uncle Willoughby]] (unknown surname)
* Uncle James (unknown surname)
* Cuthbert Mannering-Phipps (uncle; deceased)*
** Julia Mannering-Phipps (aunt by marriage)*
}}

===Fiancées===

Bertie never marries, but frequently finds himself engaged. In an early story, he attempts to become engaged to [[Gwladys Pendlebury]], an artist who paints his portrait. In the early years, he is rather given to impulsive and short-lived infatuations, under the influence of which he proposes to Florence Craye (in "[[Jeeves Takes Charge]]", the fourth story in terms of publication and the first in the internal timeline of the books), to Pauline Stoker, and to Bobbie Wickham. In all of these cases, he rethinks the charms of the holy state and a "lovely profile" upon closer understanding of the personalities of the women in question.  Having already received a proposal from him, each woman assumes that she has an open invitation to marry Bertie whenever she has a spat with her current fiancé. Madeline Bassett and Honoria Glossop suffer from a similar delusion, though in each of their cases Bertie was attempting to plead the case of a friend (Gussie Fink-Nottle and Bingo Little respectively) but was misinterpreted as confessing his own love. In all of these cases, Bertie, who aims to be an honorable ''preux chevalier'' (valiant knight), feels he has to agree to the marriage, and relies on Jeeves to somehow end the engagement.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1971], ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'', chapter 1, p. 10. "If a girl thinks you're in love with her and says she will marry you, you can't very well voice a preference for being dead in a ditch. Not, I mean, if you want to regard yourself as a preux chevalier, as the expression is, which is always my aim."</ref> In the later stories and novels, Bertie regards engagement solely as a dire situation from which Jeeves must extricate him. In the last novel, Bertie acknowledges that his infatuations have all been short-lived.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1974], ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', chapter 2, p. 17. Bertie, about Orlo being annoyed at a policeman arresting the woman Orlo loves: "I could understand how this might well have annoyed him. I have loved a fair number of women in my time, though it always seems to wear off after a while, and I should probably have drained the bitter cup a bit if I had seen any of them pinched by the police."</ref>

In ''[[Thank You, Jeeves]]'', Bertie states that he is glad he did not marry Pauline Stoker because she is "one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis", and adds that his ideal wife should be, in contrast to the dynamic Pauline, "something rather more on the lines of [[Janet Gaynor]]".<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1934], ''Thank You, Jeeves'', chapter 4, pp. 41–42.</ref> However, later in the same novel, Jeeves tells Pauline that he doubts a union between her and Bertie would have been successful as Bertie is "essentially one of Nature's bachelors".<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1934], ''Thank You, Jeeves'', chapter 18, p. 217.</ref>

Though Jeeves frequently rescues Bertie from unwanted engagements, only rarely do they openly discuss the matter, as they both feel it would be unseemly to "bandy a woman's name" in such a way.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1971], ''Much Obliged, Jeeves'', chapter 5, p. 35. "Jeeves, you see, is always getting me out of entanglements with the opposite sex, and he knows all about the various females who from time to time have come within an ace of hauling me to the altar rails, but of course we don't discuss them. To do so, we feel, would come under the head of bandying a woman's name, and the Woosters do not bandy women's names. Nor do the Jeeveses."</ref>

Of the women Bertie Wooster becomes engaged to, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are [[Madeline Bassett]] (5 novels), [[Florence Craye|Lady Florence Craye]] (1 short story, 3 novels), [[Bobbie Wickham]] (3 short stories, 1 novel), and [[Honoria Glossop]] (4 short stories).

===Friends===

Bertie is loyal to his friends, willing to do whatever he can to solve their problems, saying "when there is a chance of helping a pal we Woosters have no thought of self".<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1925], ''Carry On, Jeeves'', chapter 6, p. 149.</ref> This has led to problems for him, since he is regularly drawn into troublesome tasks. Though he continues to provide help, Bertie is aware that people do not hesitate to give him unpleasant jobs; as he says, "Whenever something sticky was afoot and action had to be taken the cry was sure to go up, 'Let Wooster do it.'"<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1974], ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', chapter 18, p. 167.</ref> Bertie's friends are eager to ask for advice from Jeeves, who enjoys helping Bertie's pals. Jeeves essentially runs a "big Mayfair consulting practice" from their home, and Bertie is accustomed to his acquaintances consulting Jeeves directly without talking to him first. Sometimes Bertie tries to assert that he can also solve problems, but truly he thinks of Jeeves as a genius as much as everyone else does.<ref>Usborne (2003), pp. 86, 93.</ref>

Among Bertie's friends, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are [[Bingo Little]] (10 short stories), [[Gussie Fink-Nottle]] (4 novels), and [[Tuppy Glossop]] (3 short stories, 1 novel). Others include Rev. [[Stinker Pinker|Harold P. "Stinker" Pinker]], [[Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright|Claude "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright]], [[List of Jeeves characters#Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley|Oliver "Sippy" Sipperley]], and [[List of Jeeves characters#Rockmetteller "Rocky" Todd|Rockmetteller "Rocky" Todd]]. Sometimes a friend or acquaintance will become a jealous antagonist, for example [[G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright]].

Some pals of Bertie's are occasionally mentioned who do not play major roles in the Jeeves stories, including Freddie Widgeon, Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, and [[Oofy Prosser]]. Many [[Drones Club]] members appear in the separate Wodehouse Drones Club stories. Bertie is acquainted with [[Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth|Lord Emsworth]], another of Wodehouse's best-known characters, who appears in the [[Blandings Castle]] stories.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1925], ''Carry On, Jeeves'', chapter 1, p. 19.</ref> Bertie also knows Lord Emsworth's son [[Freddie Threepwood]].<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1938], ''The Code of the Woosters'', chapter 4, pp. 94–95.</ref>

===Adversaries===

Bertie encounters a number of adversaries who are suspicious of him or threaten him in some way. These individuals are often quick to misinterpret Bertie's actions, which may seem strange due to the bizarre situations he becomes involved in, and come to the conclusion that Bertie is somehow mentally unsound or that he is a thief.

Among Bertie's various adversaries, those who appear in the most Jeeves stories are the "nerve specialist" or "loony doctor" [[Sir Roderick Glossop]] (4 short stories, 2 novels), and the intimidating "amateur dictator" [[Roderick Spode]] (4 novels), though Sir Roderick Glossop later becomes Bertie's friend. Other antagonists include [[Sir Watkyn Bassett]] and [[Major Plank]].