Florence Craye

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Lady Florence Craye is a recurring fictional character in the comic novels and short stories of British-American writer PG Wodehouse . PG Wodehouse lets her appear for the first time in the short story Jeeves takes the helm , first published in 1916 , and she is one of the protagonists in his last completed novel Five to 12, Jeeves , which was first published in 1974.

characterization

Lady Florence Craye is the daughter of Percy, Earl of Worplesdon. Bertie's aunt Agatha , who is her second marriage to the Earl of Worplesdon, becomes her stepmother. Her brother Edwin Craye is not only the heir to the nobility, but also a boy scout, who is always behind with his good deeds.

Lady Florence is described as a platinum blonde woman with an impressive profile. From her first appearance on, she is energetic and ambitious. Although she became engaged repeatedly, she remained unmarried at the Wodehouse plant.

In Jeeves takes the helm is Bertie Wooster still very willing fiance of Lady Florence. His newly hired valet Jeeves , however, already had doubts about Bertie's choice at the beginning: He was her father's employee and therefore knows the dominant character of Lady Florence firsthand. After all, it is Jeeves' intervention that prevents the engagement from breaking up. Florence Craye makes it a condition for a continuation of the engagement that Bertie prevent his uncle from publishing his scandalous memoir, because in almost every wild story Bertie's uncle has to tell, her father Lord Worplesdon also plays a role. Jeeves finally ensures that the manuscript lands with his publisher and that the engagement is dissolved as a result. Bertie's grief over this is brief: a renewed examination of the religious and philosophical work that Lady Florence recommended to him, namely Types of Ethical Theory by James Martineau , makes it clear to him that Lady Florence's efforts to raise his level would be very strenuous.

An impending re-engagement to Florence Craye is one of the main motifs of the novel, first published in 1946, Without Me, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse. Bertie Wooster does everything in this novel to ensure that Florence Craye maintains her engagement to his former classmate D'Arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright. Florence Craye, on the other hand, is under the impression that her upbringing efforts have had an effect during her brief engagement at Bertie and that Bertie is currently dealing with Spinoza . For her, this is the reason for her will to revive the engagement to Bertie should her relationship with D'Arcy Cheesewright fail.

Bertie is unwilling to be engaged to Lady Florence in the novels Without Butler (first published in 1971) and Five to Twelve, Jeeves (first published in 1974). In the latter novel, however, her reengagement to Bertie is extremely short - similar to Madeline Bassett in SOS, Jeeves! Just a brief hint of a possible kleptomania at Bertie is enough to end the engagement.

Besides Bertie and D'Arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright there are a number of other ex-fiancés:

  • Boko Fittleworth's engagement to Lady Florence ends in Without Me, Jeeves! briefly mentioned. He too was allowed to deal with Types of Ethical Theory during his engagement .
  • Percy Gorringe is already campaigning in Adel forgets about Florence Craye and takes it upon herself to bring her novel Spindrift to the stage. In It Doesn't Work Without Butler, however , the reader learns that nothing came of the marriage because the play had to be canceled after the third performance due to failure.
  • Similar unsuccessfulness leads to the dissolution of the engagement with an unnamed gentleman who participated in the Grand National but fell from his horse.

Trivia

  • In the novels about Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, there is another female figure who repeatedly uses Bertie Wooster as a substitute fiancé. In the four so-called Totleigh Towers novels about Aunt Dahlia , Madeline Bassett has come to believe that Bertie loves her dearly due to a misunderstanding. Whenever her relationship with Gussie Fink-Nottle threatens to fail, Bertie runs the risk that he will have to lead Madeline to the altar. Accordingly, in the novels then he does not use, Jeeves , old nobility does not rust , Jeeves works wonders and SOS, Jeeves! everything in that this relationship is maintained.
  • In the British television series Jeeves and Wooster - Lord and Master , Lady Florence is the niece of Sir Watkyn Bassett, deviating from the novel .
  • PG Wodehouse took up the motif of scandalous memoirs in the novels set at Blandings Castle. In Sommerliches Schlossgewitter and Sein und Schwein , it is the memories of the fun- loving Galahad Threepwood , brother of the fuzzy Lord Emsworth and the venerable Lady Constance, whose publication must be prevented. The publication is particularly feared by Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe , the eternal adversary of Lord Emsworth and Sir Galahad - he looks back on a particularly eventful youth. After all, it is Lord Emsworth's favorite pig, the Empress of Blandings , who finds the manuscript in her feeding trough and eats it.

literature

  • Frances Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . London 1982, ISBN 0-297-78105-7 .
  • Richard Usborne: Plum Sauce. A PG Wodehouse Companion. Overlook, Woodstock / NY 2003, ISBN 1-58567-441-9 .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ E. McIlvaine, LS Sherby, JH Heineman: PG Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist . James H. Heineman, New York 1990, ISBN 0-87008-125-X , pp. 80-81.