Reggie Pepper

Fictional character in P. G. Wodehouse stories

Reginald "Reggie" Pepper is a fictional character who appears in seven short stories by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Reggie is a young man about town who gets drawn into trouble trying to help his pals. He is considered to be an early prototype for Bertie Wooster, who, along with his valet Jeeves, is one of Wodehouse's most famous creations. The Reggie Pepper stories were originally published in magazines. Four were included in My Man Jeeves (1919), and the other stories appeared in later miscellaneous collections. The stories were not all collected in one short story collection until they were featured, along with several early Jeeves stories, in the 1997 collection Enter Jeeves. Two of the four Reggie Pepper stories published in My Man, Jeeves were later rewritten by Wodehouse as Jeeves stories, and one was rewritten as a Mr. Mulliner story.

Reggie Pepper was inspired by the English "dude" roles that Wodehouse saw on the New York stage, and by the stock Edwardian aristocrat parts that Wodehouse had seen played by comedian George Grossmith Jr.

Reggie Pepper is a young gentleman who does not do any work, having inherited a great deal of wealth from his uncle Edward Pepper of Pepper, Wells, & Co., the colliery people. He went to Oxford with Freddie Meadowes and Bill Shoolbred. In "Rallying Round Old George", he has a valet named Harold Voules, though he fires Voules by the end of the story. Later, in "Concealed Art", he employs a valet named Wilberforce. Reggie sometimes meets his friends at his club, which is unnamed. (The stories in which he appears were written before Wodehouse had invented the Drones Club). Reggie is not ambitious and is content simply to watch traffic from the window of his club, though he is also curious about the affairs of his friends, as he states in "Concealed Art". Not interested in working himself, he respects others who work. In the stories, Reggie tries to help his friends with their problems. Despite being considered not very intelligent by his friends, he occasionally experiences a flash of inspiration, which he sometimes refers to as getting a "brain wave". However, his well intentioned interference generally backfires somehow. Reggie himself notes this, stating "Doesn't some poet or philosopher fellow say that it’s when our intentions are best that we always make the most poisonous bloomers? I can’t put my hand on the passage, but you’ll find it in Shakespeare or somewhere, I’m pretty certain. Anyhow, it’s always that way with me." Continually unlucky in love, Reggie states in "Rallying Round Old George" that he has been turned down dozens of times. He was once in love with Elizabeth Shoolbred and was engaged to her for about a week, but she married the artist Clarence Yeardsley instead. He also came close to marrying Ann Selby in "The Test Case". Reggie is not engaged or married at the end of the stories, though he does not seem troubled by this. He is ultimately thankful that he did not marry Elizabeth Yeardsley, who proves to be rather manipulative, or Ann Selby, since she is a strong minded girl who would have tried to change him. The American editions of the Reggie Pepper stories differ slightly from the British editions. In the American editions, Reggie Pepper appears to be American and lives in New York instead of London. Another difference is that the money he inherits from his uncle came from a safety razor company rather than a coal company.

Reggie Pepper served as a prototype for Wodehouse's later character Bertie Wooster. In a letter to a fan also named Wooster who asked Wodehouse about the origin of Bertie Wooster's name, Wodehouse wrote, "I can't remember how I got the name Wooster. I think it may have been from a serial in the old Captain, where one of the characters was called Worcester. The odd thing is that the Bertie W. character started out as Reggie Pepper, and I don't know why I changed the name." Notably, it is Bertie's valet Jeeves who would eventually be named "Reggie" like Reggie Pepper, and Bertie Wooster received the middle name "Wilberforce", which is the name of Reggie Pepper's valet.

In the magazine publications, "Absent Treatment" was illustrated by Joseph Simpson (UK) and Wallace Morgan (US). "Helping Freddie" was illustrated by H. M. Brock (UK) and Phillipps Ward (US). "Disentangling Old Duggie" was illustrated by Alfred Leete (UK) and Wallace Morgan (US). "Rallying Round Old George" was illustrated by Charles Crombie (UK) and Wallace Morgan (US). "Doing Clarence a Bit of Good" was illustrated by Charles Crombie (UK) and James Montgomery Flagg (US). "Concealed Art" was illustrated by Alfred Leete (UK) and Will Grefé (US). "The Test Case" was illustrated by Lewis Baumer (UK) and F. Foster Lincoln (US). "Disentangling Old Duggie" was reprinted with Leete's illustrations in the UK periodical Newnes Summer Annual in 1915. "Disentangling Old Percy" was collected in the 1929 anthology The Legion Book, published by Cassell, and was published in The Golden Book Magazine (US) in October 1934. The story was included in the 1959 anthology A Cavalcade of Collier's. The British versions of "Absent Treatment", "Helping Freddie", "Rallying Round Old George" and "Doing Clarence A Bit of Good" were collected along with four early Jeeves stories in My Man Jeeves, published in May 1919. The American versions of "Absent Treatment", "Brother Alfred" and "Rallying Round Clarence" were collected in the American edition of The Man with Two Left Feet, published in 1933. The plots of three of these early stories were re worked to feature other Wodehouse characters. "Helping Freddie" was rewritten as the Jeeves story "Fixing it for Freddie" (1925), "Doing Clarence a Bit of Good" was rewritten as the Jeeves story "Jeeves Makes an Omelette" (1958), and "Rallying Round Old George" was rewritten as the Mr Mulliner story "George and Alfred" (1966). "The Test Case" was included in The Uncollected Wodehouse (1976). The British versions of "Disentangling Old Percy", "Concealed Art" and "The Test Case" were published in the second volume of Plum Stones in 1993 by Galahad Books, a specialist Wodehouse publisher. All the Reggie Pepper stories, along with some early Jeeves stories, were published in the collection Enter Jeeves by Dover Publications in 1997. With the exception of "Disentangling Old Duggie", all the Reggie Pepper stories featured in this collection are actually the British editions with the American titles, despite the collection's bibliographic note stating that some of the stories are from their original American publications.

The Reggie Pepper story "Rallying Round Old George" was adapted into the play Brother Alfred by Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook, and presented at the Savoy Theatre in April 1913. This play starred and was produced by Lawrence Grossmith. The British comedy film Brother Alfred, based on the play, was released in 1932. Two silent short comedy films, "Making Good with Mother" and "Cutting Out Venus", released in the US in 1919, were inspired by the Reggie Pepper stories. The short films were directed by Lawrence C. Windom. Reggie Pepper was given a manservant named "Jeeves", inspired by the Wodehouse character Jeeves. In the films, Jeeves was a reformed burglar. Lawrence Grossmith portrayed Reggie Pepper and Charles Coleman portrayed Jeeves. Five of the Reggie Pepper stories were read by Martin Jarvis on BBC Radio 4 in a series titled The Reggie Pepper Stories. The episodes, broadcast from 8 to 12 August 2015, included "Absent Treatment", "Lines and Business", "Disentangling Old Percy", "The Test Case", and "Concealed Art".