Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster.

First appearing in print in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, a span of 60 years.

A valet called Jevons appears in Wodehouse's 1914 short story "Creatures of Impulse", and may have been an early prototype for Jeeves.

In the letter, Wodehouse wrote, "I felt that an English valet would never have been so docile about being handed over to an American in payment of a poker debt.

"[8] The development of Jeeves and Bertie was influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, according to Richard Usborne; Sherlock Holmes and Jeeves are "the great brains" while Dr. Watson and Bertie are "the awed companion-narrators, bungling things if they try to solve the problems themselves".

Shortly before entering Bertie's service, Jeeves was employed by Lord Frederick Ranelagh, who was swindled in Monte Carlo.

[30] In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he assumes an alias, calling himself Chief Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard.

[35] In the reference work Wodehouse in Woostershire by Wodehouse scholars Geoffrey Jaggard and Tony Ring, it is speculated using information provided in the Jeeves canon that Bertie's age ranges from approximately 24 to 29 over the stories, and that Jeeves is roughly ten years older than Bertie, giving an age range of 35 to 40.

As Bertie says, Jeeves is "a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiselled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power".

While he often stays on in spite of these radical objects, he can only withstand so much: the worst case is when he resigned after Bertie, privately labeling him as a "domestic Mussolini", resolved to study the banjolele in the countryside.

[47] Often wearing "an expression of quiet intelligence combined with a feudal desire to oblige",[48] Jeeves consistently maintains a calm and courteous demeanor.

[52] When he wishes to start a conversation, he sometimes makes a low gentle cough "like a very old sheep clearing its throat on a misty mountain top".

He is much affected when a parted couple reconciles, and tells Bertie that his heart leaps up when he beholds a rainbow in the sky.

[80] Jeeves often reads intellectual, "improving" books, including the works of Spinoza, Shakespeare, and "Dostoevsky and the great Russians".

[81][82] He also enjoys the works of romance novelist Rosie M. Banks,[83] and regularly reads The Times, which Bertie occasionally borrows to try the crossword puzzle.

[89][90] Jeeves also provides assistance when Bertie, who refuses to let a pal down, gets drawn into trouble trying to help a friend or a relative he is fond of.

When Bertie must stay by himself in a hotel in "The Aunt and the Sluggard", he struggles without having Jeeves there to press his clothes and bring him tea, saying "I don't know when I've felt so rotten.

[95] Bertie dislikes when Jeeves goes on his annual holiday, stating, "without this right-hand man at his side Bertram Wooster becomes a mere shadow of his former self".

[97] Jeeves has firm ideas about how an English gentleman should dress and behave, and sees it as his duty to ensure that his employer presents himself appropriately.

Bertie becomes attached to these less conservative pieces and views Jeeves's opposition to them as "hidebound and reactionary",[98] marking him "an enemy to Progress".

[112] The fictional amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet Mervyn Bunter, created by Dorothy L. Sayers in 1923, were partially inspired by Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.

This collection includes the original versions of the eleven stories that were somewhat altered by Wodehouse to create the episodic novel The Inimitable Jeeves.

For example, Bertie states in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954) that his Aunt Dahlia has been running her paper Milady's Boudoir, first introduced in "Clustering Round Young Bingo" (1925), for about three years.

J. H. C. Morris suggested that the Jeeves canon spanned approximately five years, stating that four Christmases are accounted for, and another must have passed during Bertie's time in America in the early stories, making five in all.

Similarly, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974) mentions evangelist Billy Graham, who did not become a public figure until the late 1940s.

For example, many stage comedies involve two sundered couples, and this number is increased to five for the plot of the Jeeves novel The Mating Season.

For instance, in Joy in the Morning, Bertie says that Lord Worplesdon's study "proved to be what they call on the stage a 'rich interior', liberally equipped with desks, chairs, tables, carpets and all the usual fixings."

Later in the same scene, when Worplesdon sends his butler to fetch Jeeves, Bertie says, "During the stage wait, which was not of long duration, the old relative filled in with some ad lib stuff about Boko, mostly about how much he disliked his face" (chapter 22).

[128] Wodehouse uses a number of what Kristin Thompson terms "delaying devices" to keep the competent Jeeves from solving problems too quickly.

For example, in "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina", Bertie ends up in a tree while trespassing as part of a task outlined by the mischievous Bobbie Wickham, and is confronted by a policeman.