Drones Club


The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.
Various members of the club appear in stories included in the "Drones Club series", which contains stories not already included in other series. Most of the Drones Club stories star either Freddie Widgeon or Bingo Little.
The name "Drones" has been used by several real-life clubs and restaurants.

Overview

The Drones Club is in Mayfair, London, located in Dover Street, off Piccadilly. A drone being a male bee that does no work, living off the labour of others, it aptly describes the contemporary Edwardian stereotype of rich, idle young club members, though some of the members have careers and even jobs.
As decided by a vote of the club's members, the Drones Club tie is a striking "rich purple". A Drones Club scarf is also mentioned.
Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club, Buck's Club, and a dash of the Bath Club for its swimming pool's ropes and rings. The fictional Drones barman, McGarry, has the same surname as the Buck's first bartender, a Mr McGarry. However Evelyn Waugh declared that the Drones did not resemble any real club in 1920s London.
A real club has been based at 40 Dover Street since 1893, The Arts Club. Other gentlemen's clubs which have existed on Dover Street but are now dissolved include the Bath Club, the Junior Naval and Military Club, and the Scottish Club, as well as two mixed-sex clubs, the Albemarle Club and the Empress Club. None of these were considered among London's 'premier' clubs of the kind found on St James's Street and Pall Mall, and so their ambience often had something of the raucous informality of the fictional Drones Club.
About a dozen club members are major or secondary recurring characters in the Wodehouse stories. In addition to Bertie Wooster, Pongo Twistleton, Rupert Psmith, and Freddie Threepwood, prominent recurring drones include Bingo Little and Freddie Widgeon, plus Monty Bodkin, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, Tuppy Glossop, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Archibald Mulliner, and the club millionaire Oofy Prosser.

Events

Among the Wodehouse works, what was later dubbed the "Drones Club series" is a loose set of separate stories told by various narrators about members of the Drones Club. Many of the stories are told at the club or have some events happening at the club.
; Main canon
The main canon consists of 21 short stories, as eventually collected in the omnibus:
The same set of short stories is also available in their original collections:
Bingo Little
Freddie Widgeon
Other
; Additional novels
Can be added six novels about the adventures of Drones as main protagonist:
; Related stories
Related are all stories about those Drones Club members already part of another series, but more especially:
; Relatable stories
Relatable is one story, which features the club and a Drone as a secondary character, and marks the first mention of the Drones Club:
Many more stories simply include a Drones member in some scenes, or have mentions of club members.
; Not included
Not included are all identical stories published under other titles, or "recycled" stories, especially:
Most of the Drones short stories are also "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets stories". These stories feature unnamed club members, each referred to as an "Egg", "Bean", or "Crumpet". This is allegedly based on the habit they have of addressing each other as "old egg", "old bean", or "my dear old crumpet", though characters in the stories almost never address other characters by these nicknames. A few later stories introduce a fourth subset of Drones Club members known as "Piefaces".
Many of the Drones Club stories begin with these nondescript members talking about the latest exploits of Freddie Widgeon, Pongo Twistleton, Bingo Little, or another of their number. The story then transitions into a particularly well-informed Crumpet narrating the story as he tells it to an uninformed Egg or Bean:
Wodehouse had already used this technique in the stories told by his Mr Mulliner, who refers to his anonymous interlocutors by the name of their drink.

Members

The total number of members is not established. At the Drones Club weekend in Le Touquet, France, were "about 87 members", and not all of them crossed the Channel.
; Confirmed Drones members include
; Possible Drones members include
; Club staff includes
; Virtual Drones members include
Some real "Drones" clubs or restaurants exist or have existed, including: