Japanese Empress sparks Jeeves and Wooster frenzy after announcing retirement plans

There are few more quintessentially British characters than Reginald Jeeves, the devoted valet who skilfully navigates his master Bertie Wooster through a string of mishaps.

Now, the antics of Jeeves and Wooster, imortalised by PG Wodehouse, are enjoying a surge in popularity on the other side of the world, thanks to one very high-profile fan: the Empress of Japan.

Empress Michiko of Japan, whose husband the Emperor will abdicate next April, has revealed that upon retirement she plans to savour reading a string of Jeeves and Wooster tales.

The 84-year-old empress, a much-loved figure in Japan, described how she was normally unable to read such books as she found them too absorbing – but she now has several Jeeves books on standby to enjoy fully when her official duties came to an end next spring.

“There are two or three PG Wodehouse ‘Jeeves’ books waiting for me,” she revealed, adding that she planned to spend her retirement “peacefully” by her husband’s side, reading as many books as possible.

Her comments were issued in writing to domestic media last month to mark the occasion of her 84th birthday. While the Jeeves and Wooster series was relatively unknown in Japan before the empress’ comments, her remarks have resulted in thousands of additional copies being printed.

Kokusho Kankokai, a Tokyo publishing company which publishes 14 books in the Jeeves series, was reportedly so overwhelmed with public queries that they have already reprinted 20,000 more copies.

“We printed about 100 copies annually in the past year or two, but we now receive orders for 100 copies a day,” Junichi Isozaki, chief of its publishing department, told Jiji news agency.

Social media has also been alight with posts by Japanese readers discovering the very English world of Jeeves and Wooster for the first time as a result of comments made by the empress.

Isehara Shoten, a company operating 10 bookstores across Kanagawa prefecture, also posted images on Twitter of bookshelves packed with special empress promotion copies of Jeeves and Wooster.

The empress is clearly in good company with her love of Jeeves and Wooster, whose adventures were described in signature satirical style in of over 30 popular short stories and 11 novels written between 1915 and 1974 by PG Wodehouse.

Other famous admirers include the late Queen Mother, a patron of the Wodehouse Society, whose love of the antics of Jeeves and Wooster started in her childhood and continued throughout her life.