| Series: | Jeeves |
| Aunt Agatha | |
| First: | "Extricating Young Gussie" (1915) |
| Last: | "Indian Summer of an Uncle" (1930) |
| Portrayer: | Mary Wimbush Elizabeth Spriggs Fabia Drake and others |
| Creator: | P. G. Wodehouse |
| Gender: | Female |
| Full Name: | Agatha Gregson Craye née Wooster |
| Lady Worplesdon | |
| Nationality: | British |
| Family: | Dahlia Travers (sister) George Wooster, Lord Yaxley (brother) Henry Wooster (brother; deceased) Bertie Wooster's father (brother; deceased) |
| Spouse: | Spenser Gregson (deceased) Percy Craye, Lord Worplesdon |
| Children: | Thomas "Thos" Gregson (son) Lady Florence Craye (stepdaughter) Edwin Craye (stepson) |
| Relatives: | Bertie Wooster (nephew) Many others (see the list of Bertie's relatives) |
Agatha Gregson, née Wooster, later Lady Worplesdon, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories of the British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being best known as Bertie Wooster's Aunt Agatha. Haughty and overbearing, Aunt Agatha wants Bertie to marry a wife she finds suitable, though she never manages to get Bertie married, thanks to Jeeves's interference.
She is often mentioned in the stories as being Bertie's fearsome aunt, in contrast to her sister Aunt Dahlia, Bertie's genial aunt.
The character of Aunt Agatha was inspired by Wodehouse's aunt Mary Bathurst Deane, his mother's older sister. In a 1955 a letter to his biographer Richard Usborne, Wodehouse wrote "Aunt Agatha is definitely my Aunt Mary, who was the scourge of my childhood."[1] According to Richard Usborne, "His Aunt Mary (Deane) harried and harassed him a good deal, and blossomed later into Bertie's Aunt Agatha. Aunt Mary honestly considered that her harrying and harassing of the young Pelham was for his good; and she may have been right."[2]
Aunt Agatha's country home Woollam Chersey was inspired by Hunstanton Hall, the home of Wodehouse's friend Charles Le Strange.[3]
Generally formidable in appearance, Aunt Agatha is five-foot-nine, with a beaky nose, an eagle eye, and a lot of grey hair.[4] Agatha had at first been affianced to Percy Craye, though upon reading in the papers of his behaviour at a Covent Garden ball, she had ended the engagement. She then married Spenser Gregson, though he dies before The Code of the Woosters. About eighteen months before Joy in the Morning, she marries Percy Craye who had by then become Lord Worplesdon, whereupon she becomes Lady Worplesdon. She has one son, Thomas "Thos" Gregson.[5]
Aunt Agatha once portrayed Boadicea in an amateur pageant held at her home, Woollam Chersey. Bertie was obliged to play King Edward III in the same pageant.[6] She lives at Woollam Chersey in Hertfordshire as Agatha Gregson and later, after marrying Percy Craye, becomes Lady Worplesdon and lives at the Craye home of Bumpleigh Hall near Steeple Bumpleigh in Hampshire.[7]
Generally, Aunt Agatha tries to make Bertie marry or tells him to do some task that she feels will benefit the family's prestige. Though Bertie is not financially dependent on her, he has been intimidated by her since he was young and, particularly in the early stories, feels compelled to obey her wishes.[4] She has never liked Jeeves,[8] and thinks that Bertie is too dependent on him, calling Jeeves Bertie's keeper.[9] She disapproves of Bertie talking to Jeeves about private matters. On one occasion when she hears Bertie ask Jeeves for advice, she tells Jeeves to leave and then scolds Bertie, making remarks to him about "what she thought of a Wooster who could lower the prestige of the clan by allowing menials to get above themselves".[10]
Aunt Agatha first appears in "Extricating Young Gussie". This early story is usually not included in the main Jeeves canon (Bertie's surname appears to be Mannering-Phipps), though events in the story are referenced in future stories. In this story, Aunt Agatha tells Bertie to go to New York to keep his cousin, Gussie, away from the girl he has fallen in love with, Ray Denison. Aunt Agatha disapproves of Ray because she is a vaudeville performer, and feels that Gussie would disgrace the family by marrying her.[11] Bertie only manages to make the problem (as Aunt Agatha sees it) worse, and decides to avoid her for a while.[12]
In "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count", she tries to make Bertie marry Aline Hemmingway, and later pushes Bertie to marry Honoria Glossop in "Scoring off Jeeves" and "Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch". She also appears in "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace".[13] These stories are in The Inimitable Jeeves.
Aunt Agatha wants to get Bertie a job in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom", tries to get Bertie engaged to Honoria again in "Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit", and instructs Bertie to keep his uncle, George Wooster, Lord Yaxley, from marrying an unsuitable woman in "Indian Summer of an Uncle". Her pet dog McIntosh, an Aberdeen terrier, is featured in "Episode of the Dog McIntosh".[14] These stories are collected in Very Good, Jeeves,
Though she is frequently mentioned, Aunt Agatha does not directly appear in the novels. At the end of The Mating Season, Bertie is heading downstairs to see her, intending to finally stand up to her.[15] Nonetheless, he is afraid of what will happen if information about his misadventures reaches Aunt Agatha in Much Obliged, Jeeves.[16]
Aunt Agatha appears in:
Aunt Agatha is mentioned in many stories, including:
Bertie describes his imperious Aunt Agatha in the following quotes, often mentioning her as a counterpoint to Aunt Dahlia:
The term "Aunt Agatha" has come to mean a "formidable aunt" or, more generally, "any older woman of fearsome disposition".[22]