Agatha Gregson, née Wooster, later Lady Worplesdon, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being best known as Aunt Agatha, Bertie Wooster's least favourite aunt, and a counterpoint to her sister, Bertie's Aunt Dahlia. Fearsome and strong-willed, she is always trying to get Bertie married, though without success, thanks to Jeeves's interference. She is known as "the nephew-crusher". Bertie would avoid her if he could, but far too often finds himself bent to her indomitable will.
Contents |
Agatha had at first been affianced to Percy Craye, though upon reading in the papers of his behavior at a Covent Garden ball, she had ended the engagement. She then married Spenser Gregson, who is her husband for most of the Wodehouse canon, though he dies in time for her to marry Craye, who had by then become Lord Worplesdon, Earl of Worplesdon, whereupon she becomes Lady Worplesdon. She has one son, Thomas Gregson, (Thos.). She is also the stepmother of Lord Worplesdon's daughter, Florence Craye.
She has a pet dog companion named McIntosh. It is a West Highland white terrier and was the center of the plot of Episode of the Dog McIntosh and its TV adaptation Tuppy and the Terrier, in which Bertie almost lost it to a Broadway producer.
Aunt Agatha has been described as "the best image of the dialoguing philosopher".[1]
In Jeeves and Wooster, a Granada Television series based on the canon, which aired in the early 1990s, she was played by Mary Wimbush for the first three series and by Elizabeth Spriggs in the fourth. In the 1960s tv adaptation starring Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price, Aunt Agatha was played formidably by Fabia Drake.
Aunt Agatha also seems likely to have caused Bertie's expostulation that "It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof".