Wodehouse.

P.G. Wodehouse interviewed for The Paris Review's "Art of Fiction" series ...

INTERVIEWER

I suppose that the world has gone the way of spats. You were very fond of spats, weren’t you? Tell me a little about them.

WODEHOUSE

I don’t know why spats went out! The actual name was spatterdashers, and you fastened them over your ankles, you see, to prevent the spatter dashing you. They certainly lent tone to your appearance, and they were awfully comfortable, especially when you wore them in cold weather. I’ve written articles, which were rather funny, about how I used to go about London. I would borrow my brother’s frock coat and my uncle’s hat, but my spats were always new and impeccable. The butler would open the door and take in my old topcoat and hat and sniff as if to say, “Hardly the sort of thing we are accustomed to.” And then he would look down at the spats and everything would be all right. It’s a shame when things like spats go out.

INTERVIEWER

Did you ever have a butler like Jeeves?

WODEHOUSE

No, never like Jeeves. My butlers were quite different, though I believe J. M. Barrie had one just like Jeeves.

INTERVIEWER

How did you create Jeeves, then?

WODEHOUSE

I only intended to use him once. His first entrance was: “Mrs. Gregson to see you, sir,” in a story called “Extricating Young Gussie.” He only had one other line, “Very good, sir. Which suit will you wear?” But then I was writing a story, “The Artistic Career of Corky,” about two young men, Bertie Wooster and his friend Corky, getting into a lot of trouble, and neither of them had brains enough to get out of the trouble. I thought: Well, how can I get them out? And I thought: Suppose one of them had an omniscient valet? I wrote a short story about him, then another short story, then several more short stories and novels. That’s how a character grows. I think I’ve written nine Jeeves novels now and about thirty short stories.

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