The adjective Jeeves-like means: resembling Jeeves, the perfect valet in stories by the English author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975); this fictional character first appeared in 1915.
The adjective Jeeves-like occurs, for example, in an account of a tennis match between Mary Pierce and Chandra Rubin—account by Martin Johnson, published in The Daily Telegraph (London, England) of Friday 17th January 2003 [No. 45,908; Sport Section: page S8, column 3]:
Her [i.e., Mary Pierce’s] serve was awesome in the first set, not only for its velocity, but for the clinical nature of its buildup. Mary does not pluck away at her racket strings, like so many of them, but she does require both her clothing and her coiffeur [sic] to be perfectly arranged before delivery, and also for the ballboys to provide the ammunition with Jeeves-like precision.
—Cf. also the adjective Jeevesian.
The earliest occurrences that I have found of the adjective Jeeves-like are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From a review of Lord Richard in the Pantry, a comedy by Sidney Blow and Douglas Hoare, produced at the Vancouver Theatre—review published in The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) of Tuesday 7th February 1928 [Vol. 83, No. 110, page 2, column 1]:
Richard Cooper again stars as Lord Richard Sandridge, who becomes the bogus butler in his own house which he has rented, for economic reasons, to Mrs. Sylvia Gayford (Gina Graves). His own man, Carter (Jevan Brandon-Thomas), takes employment elsewhere, but, Jeeves-like, returns to help his erstwhile master in a crucial point.
2-: From a review of The Mulberry Bush, a comedy by Edward Knoblock, produced at the Criterion Theatre, in London—review by Dudley Leslie, published in the Sunday Dispatch (London, England) of Sunday 4th May 1930 [No. 6,705, page 15, column 4]:
Randolph McLeod, the Jeeves-like butler, was so free with his comments about life and conduct that he must have been a very uncomfortable person to have around.
3-: From Labels: A Mediterranean Journal (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, September 1930), by the English author Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) [page 46]—the following is about life aboard the Stella, a Norwegian-owned motor yacht:
The stewards came of that cosmopolitan and polyglot race, Norwegian, Swiss, British, Italian, which supply the servants of the world. They maintained a Jeeves-like standard of courtesy and efficiency which was a particular delight to the English passengers, many of whom had been driven abroad by the problem of servants in their own homes.
4-: From a portrait of T. J. Cox, the retiring Mayor of Wandsworth, in London, published in The Streatham News (London, England) of Friday 31st October 1930 [No. 2,132, page 16, column 4]:
However much his sleep has been curtailed he has arrived at the Council House early each morning, attending to his monstrous mail, discussing engagements with his Jeeves-like secretary, Mr. Willett, and signing papers as a J.P.
5-: From a review of Those Three French Girls (1930), a U.S. comedy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, with dialogue by P. G. Wodehouse—review published in The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) of Monday 12th January 1931 [Vol. 134, No. 19,791, page 5, column 7]:
Nothing can charm the irate earl, when the mixed party invades the ancestral home, horrifying the Jeeves-like butler (Peter Cawthorne), and actually motoring amongst the heirloom furniture.
6-: From a review of Almost a Honeymoon, a comedy by Walter Ellis, produced at the Royal Court Theatre, in Liverpool—review published in the Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Tuesday 3rd March 1931 [No. 15,961, page 9, column 2]:
Mr. George Ricketts is again the perfect Jeeves-like valet.
7-: From a review of the same comedy, Almost a Honeymoon, produced at His Majesty’s Theatre, in Aberdeen—review published in the Aberdeen Press and Journal (Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland) of Tuesday 14th April 1931 [No. 23,800, page 2, column 1]:
The characters are, to some extent, stock ones, and could almost be ascribed to the types made famous by certain actors—to Seymour Hicks, for instance, and to Tom Walls. But that is far from being a defect. And it is by the playing of these characters and another familiar one—the Jeeves-like valet—that the play’s fun stands or falls.
8-: From a review of Paulette, a musical play produced at the King’s Theatre, in Glasgow—review published in The Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser (Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland) of Saturday 12th December 1931 [No. 3,973, page 3, column 1]:
Mr. Peter Haddon as the irresponsible idiot is good, and the Jeeves-like valet of Mr. Dick Francis is funnier than the book would seem to make likely.
9-: From a review of Jardine Justified: The Truth about the Ashes (London: Chapman & Hall Ltd, 1933), by the English sports journalist Bruce Harris (1887-1960)—(Douglas Jardine (1900-1958) was an English cricketer.)—review by Arthur Mailey, published in The Sun (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 1st July 1933 [No. 7,333, page 3, column 8]:
HAD Bruce Harris, of the London “Standard,” searched the world he could not have found a better person to write a foreword for his book “Jardine Justified” than Douglas Jardine himself.
[…]
“My dear Harris,” he writes in a prelude to his own foreword, “never once did you abuse a confidence reposed in you whether in the smoking-room or in the train.
“I have not read your book, but, needless to say, I shall most certainly do so as soon as it is printed. I hope that in any future tour, maybe to Australia, the English press, in the interests of accuracy, will not rely on cabled extracts from the sensational Press or Press men of Australia.”
To that the faithful Harris replies: “Thank you, Mr. Jardine. Your action in writing the foreword to ‘Jardine Justified’ is one of your many kindnesses.”
Let us draw the curtain on this Jeeves-like exchange in the first pages and plunge into the thick of the battle, [&c.].
10-: From the column This New York, by the U.S. author and journalist Lucius Beebe (1902-1966), published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) of Sunday 14th January 1934 [Vol. 86, No. 131; Society News Section: page 3C, column 3]:
NEW YORK, Jan. 13.
A GENTLEMAN of the town named Mr. Hoxey Clark, who has a personable debutante daughter and likes young people around the house, has added a new gesture of flattery to entertaining. Young gentlemen calling of a Sunday afternoon or in the evening are, naturally, asked to have a drink. When they reply, equally naturally, in the affirmative, the head butler approaches and, with Jeeves-like suavity, says, “Your university, sir?” The uninitiated are usually momentarily taken aback, but get their co-ordinations in order enough to say “Harvard” or “Yale” or “Columbia,” whereupon they are served in appropriate glasses decorated with an H or a Y or a handsomely engrossed C.
The only contretemps reported was when one youth answered “Wyoming,” and the geographically perplexed English servant brought him a Scotch highball with a large Y on the glass.
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