Aunt Dahlia

Dahlia Travers (née Wooster) is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being best known as Bertie Wooster's bonhomous, red-faced Aunt Dahlia. She is much beloved by her nephew, in contrast with her sister, Bertie's Aunt Agatha. Proprietor of the weekly newspaper for women Milady's Boudoir, she is married to Tom Travers, mother of Angela Travers and Bonzo Travers, and employs the supremely gifted French chef Anatole.

Picture of PG Wodehouse.
P.G. Wodehouse

Overview

Dahlia and Tom Travers make their residence at Brinkley Court outside Market Snodsbury in Worcestershire. They were married "the year Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire". Dahlia is Tom's second wife.[1] Bertie's father was Dahlia's brother.[2]

Aunt Dahlia is "built rather on the lines of Mae West", but with a reddish-purple complexion. Her most notable personal characteristic is her carrying voice. Riding in her youth for years with such fox-hunting clubs as the Quorn and the Pytchley, she tends to address Bertie, over the phone or indoors, as if "shouting across ploughed fields in a high wind."[3]

She is also a Governor of Market Snodsbury Grammar School, for which she has the formidable task to find speakers for prize-giving day. When called, Bertie would rather shove it off on to his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle (and not "Spink-Bottle", as Dahlia insists on calling him).

Dahlia employs the French chef extraordinaire Anatole since stealing him from Rosie M. Banks (Mrs Bingo Little) with the help of Jeeves. Just the thought of his cooking is usually enough to make Bertie answer Dahlia's call to Brinkley Court, except when some prize-giving is involved.

Despite Tom and Bertie's dislike of Agatha, Dahlia does not mind her sister and even goes so far as to invite her to Brinkley Court, over Tom's objections.

Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster

Unlike Aunt Agatha, the "aged relative" seems to enjoy Bertie's company and occasionally shows him an aunt's love, even if she does call him a "young blot", "an idiot nephew", "a worm", etc. Indeed, Dahlia's famous telegram conversations with Bertie can display some rough love; for instance, after Bertie dumped his prize-giving duty on an unsuspecting Fink-Nottle, she sent:

« Am taking legal advice to ascertain whether strangling an idiot nephew counts as murder. If it doesn't look out for yourself. Consider your conduct frozen limit. What do you mean by planting your loathsome friends on me like this? Do you think Brinkley Court is a leper colony or what is it? Who is this Spink-Bottle? Love. Travers. » (in Right Ho, Jeeves, chapter six)

And a few telegrams later, she sent:

« Well, all right. Something in what you say, I suppose. Consider you treacherous worm and contemptible, spineless cowardly custard, but have booked Spink-Bottle. Stay where you are, then, and I hope you get run over by an omnibus. Love. Travers. » (in Right Ho, Jeeves, chapter six)

Sometimes, Bertie suspects, Dahlia seems to value him more for his association with the exceptionally clever Jeeves than for his own qualities. Her chief use for Bertie, however, is to commit minor burglaries or acts of calculated vandalism, which often misfire and require Jeeves to extract them both from the soup.

Milady's Boudoir

Milady's Boudoir is a fictional weekly newspaper for women, of which Aunt Dahlia is the proprietor. It is probably based on The Lady[4](Britain's oldest weekly women's magazine; The Lady was managed by David Freeman-Mitford, whose family supplied the original for another Wodehouse character, Roderick Spode). Milady's Boudoir (and not "Madame's Nightshirt", as Tom Travers insists on calling it) never sold well and only stayed in business because of the reluctant largesse of Dahlia's husband. It lasted for three (according to Bertie)[5] or four (according to Dahlia and Bertie)[6] years before being sold to Mr Trotter.

Backstory
Contributors include


Stories

Aunt Dahlia is featured in many Jeeves stories, across most of Wodehouse's writing career:

Aunt Dahlia or her Milady's Boudoir are mentioned in:

Actresses

Film and TV actresses
Radio actresses
Audiobook actresses

See also

References

Sources consulted
Endnotes
  1. ↑ Wodehouse 1934, Right Ho, Jeeves, chapter 4. Bertie states that Dahlia "married old Tom Travers en secondes noces"
  2. ↑ Wodehouse 1960, Jeeves in the Offing.
  3. ↑ Wodehouse 1954, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. See also descriptions of Aunt Dahlia in Wodehouse 1938, The Code of the Woosters.
  4. ↑ Murphy, Norman (June 2010). "Milady's Boudoir: The Lady or Not?". Wooster Sauce. London: P G Wodehouse Society (UK) (54): 11.
  5. ↑ Wodehouse 1954, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, chapter V. Bertie explains Dahlia has had her journal for three years.
  6. ↑ Wodehouse 1960, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XVII: from Dahlia ("For four years I was, if you remember, the proprietor and editress of a weekly paper for women.") and Bertie ("It had recently been sold to a mug up Liverpool way, and I have never seen Uncle Tom look chirpier than when the deal went through, he for those four years having had to foot the bills.").

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