Honoria Glossop

Honoria Glossop is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. Athletic as well as scholarly, she is a formidable young lady and one of the women whom Bertie Wooster becomes reluctantly engaged to.

Honoria Glossop
Jeeves character
Honoria (right) laughing in "Scoring off Jeeves" illustrated by A. Wallis Mills in 1922
First appearance"Scoring off Jeeves" (1922)
Last appearance"Jeeves and the Greasy Bird" (1965)
Created byP. G. Wodehouse
Portrayed byDonna Lynne Champlin
Miriam Margolyes and others
In-universe information
Full nameHonoria Jane Louise Glossop
GenderFemale
FamilySir Roderick Glossop (father)
Lady Glossop (mother) (deceased)
Oswald Glossop (brother)
RelativesTuppy Glossop (cousin)
Heloise Pringle (cousin)
NationalityBritish

Life and character

Honoria Glossop (full name Honoria Jane Louise Glossop)[1] is the daughter of Sir Roderick Glossop and the older sister of Oswald Glossop. Large, brainy, and athletic, she has an assertive personality and a forceful voice. She plays every kind of sport, and Bertie suspects she may have boxed for her university.[2] She has a strong presence; Bertie notes that "there is something about Honoria which makes almost anybody you meet in the same room seem sort of under-sized and trivial by comparison."[3] A graduate of Girton College, Cambridge, she is interested in intellectual pursuits, and reads Nietzsche and Ruskin.[4]

In the Jeeves canon, Honoria gets engaged to Bertie Wooster twice. The first instance occurs sometime around the end of "Scoring off Jeeves". Bertie does not actually want to marry her, but he is too intimidated by Honoria, and by his Aunt Agatha who wants him to marry Honoria, to turn her down.[5] The engagement is over by the end of "Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch". Both short stories appear in The Inimitable Jeeves.[6]

Honoria is briefly engaged to Bertie's friend "Biffy" Biffen in "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy".[4] Honoria has a cousin, Heloise Pringle, who appears in the short story, "Without the Option". Heloise resembles her cousin in almost every respect.[7] Both of these stories are collected in Carry On, Jeeves.

She is mentioned in "Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit" (in Very Good, Jeeves), in which Aunt Agatha's plan to have the engagement between Honoria and Bertie restored is preemptively thwarted by Jeeves.[8]

Bertie finds himself engaged to Honoria a second time in the short story "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird", after Bertie courts her to make the novelist Blair Eggleston jealous, hoping that Blair will be compelled to admit his feelings to Honoria.[9] Though events do not proceed exactly as Bertie planned, Honoria returns Blair's feelings, and ultimately, she is engaged to Blair.[4] Blair Eggleston had previously appeared in the novel Hot Water.

Appearances

Honoria is mentioned in several stories, including:

Quotes

Honoria is distinctive for her vigorous laugh, which is described in several different stories by Bertie Wooster:

  • "She chucked back her head and laughed with considerable vim. She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel."[10]
  • "I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the Scotch express going under a bridge. It was Honoria Glossop laughing."[11]
  • "Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a welter-weight and a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge."[12]
  • "How it happened, I couldn't tell you to this day, but I once got engaged to [Sir Roderick Glossop's] daughter, Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rock-bound coast."[13]
  • "Honoria Glossop was hearty, yes. Her laugh was like a steam-riveting machine, and from a child she had been a confirmed back-slapper."[14]

Adaptations
Television
Stage
  • In the 1975 musical Jeeves, Honoria was portrayed by Angela Easterling.
  • In the London premiere of By Jeeves, the 1996 rewrite of the previous musical, Honoria was portrayed by Lucy Tregear.
Film
Radio

See also

References
Notes
  1. Wodehouse (2008) [1925], Carry On, Jeeves, chapter 6, p. 145.
  2. Ring & Jaggard (1999), p. 100.
  3. Wodehouse (2008) [1923], The Inimitable Jeeves, chapter 8, p. 79.
  4. Cawthorne (2013), pp. 191-192.
  5. Wodehouse (2008) [1923], The Inimitable Jeeves, chapter 7, pp. 72-74.
  6. Garrison (1991), pp. 80-81.
  7. Cawthorne (2013), pp. 195-196.
  8. Cawthorne (2013), p. 75.
  9. Wodehouse (1968) [1966], Plum Pie, chapter 1, pp. 21-22.
  10. Wodehouse (2008) [1923], The Inimitable Jeeves, chapter 6, p. 66.
  11. Wodehouse (2008) [1923], The Inimitable Jeeves, chapter 6, p. 69.
  12. Wodehouse (2008) [1925], Carry On, Jeeves, chapter 6, p. 146.
  13. Wodehouse (2008) [1930], Very Good, Jeeves, chapter 3, p. 65.
  14. Wodehouse (2008) [1947], Joy in the Morning, chapter 2, p. 20.
  15. "P. G. Wodehouse's The World of Wooster: 1: Jeeves and the Greasy Bird". BBC Genome Project. 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  16. "Jeeves and Wooster Series 1, Episode 1". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  17. Taves, Brian (2006). P. G. Wodehouse and Hollywood: Screenwriting, Satires and Adaptations. McFarland & Company. p. 199. ISBN 978-0786422883.
  18. "What Ho, Jeeves!: Part 3: Honoria Glossop". The Radio Times (2588): 47. 1973-06-14. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
Bibliography
  • Cawthorne, Nigel (2013). A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster. Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-78033-824-8.
  • Garrison, Daniel H. (1991) [1989]. Who's Who in Wodehouse (Revised ed.). Constable & Robinson. ISBN 1-55882-087-6.
  • Ring, Tony; Jaggard, Geoffrey (1999). Wodehouse in Woostershire. Porpoise Books. ISBN 1-870-304-19-5.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (2008) [1923]. The Inimitable Jeeves (Reprinted ed.). Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0099513681.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (2008) [1925]. Carry On, Jeeves (Reprinted ed.). Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0099513698.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (2008) [1930]. Very Good, Jeeves (Reprinted ed.). Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0099513728.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (2008) [1947]. Joy in the Morning (Reprinted ed.). Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0099513766.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (1968) [1966]. Plum Pie (Reprinted ed.). Pan Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0330022033.
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