The Mating Season

From the information on the reverse side of the title page, this seems to have been created by Ionicus in 1971. It's very unusual in his work from this time in being, not a depiction of events in carefully drafted settings, but character studies floating in space. The characters are well delineated (we are given Ionicus's only depiction of Gussie Fink-Nottle, and the only criticism I might make is that it is too much like Gussie Fink-Nottle to be entirely pleasant), and we have an excellent Bertie and Jeeves in the middle.

There is however one point I'd like to raise in this connection. Ionicus, at his best, was an excellent depicter of character; but what he could not do, seemeingly, was consistently show a character over a series of images. I would ask the reader to glance again at the covers of Carry On, Jeeves, Jeeves in the Offing and Much Obliged, Jeeves. Each has its charm and its virtues, especially the first two, and each is a carefully considered depiction of Jeeves and Bertie. But the Bertie of Carry On, Jeeves has dark, mousy hair; in Much Obliged, Jeeves it is grey; and here in The Mating Season it is coppery brown. The Jeeves of Carry On, Jeeves is quite simply different from the Jeeves of Much Obliged, Jeeves, and both are different from the Jeeves of The Mating Season. They even have differently shaped heads. The same strictures could be made about Ionicus's depictions of Lord Emsworth, the Hon Galahad Threepwood, and some others. It did worry me slightly, in the way that matters that are of no importance whatsoever can worry a person. But now I know how to think about the matter, and I am at peace. What we have over these series is the characters of Jeeves, Bertie and the others, all excellently depicted, only by different actors.

The type is Monotype Bembo: a little different from most of the others, larger and easier to read:

I have very fond memories of my first encounter with this novel, at about the age of fourteen. I had devoured the "classic" Jeeveses: the short stories, plus Right Ho, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters (named by my father as the true classics, as of course they are); I had also read Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954), a later and inferior title in the series; but The Mating Season (1949), which I now consider the last of the first-rank Jeeves novels (not counting the sweet swan-song, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974)), was a quite new discovery to me, the title's existence becoming apparent at the same moment as the book itself manifested itself in the bookshop. It revisits some of the ideas from previous books (the Market Snodsbury Grammar School Prizegiving becomes the King's Deverill Village Concert; the Aberdeen terrier Bartholomew in The Code of the Woosters becomes the shaggy dog Sam Goldwyn; and so on), but it plays some excellent variations along the way. It also has a great, and unusual ending, with the promise of Bertie for once in his life facing up to the dread Aunt Agatha. (A very similar act of defiance occurs at the end of Uncle Dynamite (1948); was there a special importance for Wodehouse himself in this?) And Wodehouse also manages to wreak a petty but very satisfying revenge on A.A. Milne, who had heaped abuse on Wodehouse during the war years.