Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

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Aunts Aren't Gentlemen is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on October 17, 1974 by Barrie & Jenkins, London and in the United States on April 14, 1975 by Simon & Schuster, New York. It was the last novel to feature some of Wodehouse's best known characters, Bertie Wooster and his resourceful valet Jeeves, and the last novel fully completed by Wodehouse before his death.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Aunts Aren't Gentleman is another of the Bertie-Jeeves exploits in which Aunt Dahlia starts horsing around and enmeshes, amongst others, Bertie, Vanessa Cook, Orlo Porter, Major Plank, Potato Chip the horse, and The Cat That Kept Popping Up.

The story begins with Bertie unexpectedly finding himself spotty about the thorax. Pink, though bright and dressy, is the wrong colour for spots and he flies off to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd the sombre bird of Harley Street whom we encountered despotting Tipton Plimsoll in Full Moon. After briefly getting mixed with Orlo Porter fleeing from a chasing policeman and a crowd with leftist tendencies, Bertie's Trial of the Soul is just beginning when the doc sentences him to a quiet life in the country.

Fate leads B to Maiden Eggesford, and so enter into Bertie's life, Maiden Eggesford with its two leading men - Jimmy Briscoe and Pop Cook with their respective horses, Simla and Potato Chip, and the dark rivalry. Aunt Dahlia, a friend of Jimmy Briscoe, has put her shirt on Simla only to find that it isn't a snitch.

Bertie, who has already had a nasty jar after having seen Major Plank in residence with Pop Cook, has had jam on top when the pop-eyed Pop of Vanessa Cook takes an instant dislike to him when he is found tickling a passing cat. That cat, not being a mere cat, is a favorite of Potato Chip.

All hell breaks loose when, to consolidate her position, the ever-resourceful aunt gets a gentlemanly neighbourhood poacher to steal the feline friend, embroiling Bertie in the to-do. In the meantime, things get hot when there's a rift in the lute between Vanessa and Orlo Porter and the ghastly girl decides to plight her troth to the blighted Bertie.

How Bertie is saved from the Scylla of marrying Vanessa and being torn with bare hands by the Spode-like Orlo and the Charybdis of being whipped by Pop Cook, without compromising his position with the employer of Anatole, is solely due to the lightning quick action of the little grey cells of Jeeves.