The Diary of a Nobody - Softcover

Grossmith, George; Grossmith, Weedon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140437320 ISBN 13: 9780140437324

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1999

Synopsis

Channelling a razor-sharp satire through the everyday mishaps of the immortal comic character Mr Pooter, George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody is edited with an introduction and notes by Ed Glinert in Penguin Classics.

Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle-class suburbia - one which sends up the late Victorian crazes for Aestheticism, spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody.

This edition contains the original illustrations by Weedon Grossmith and an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium, discussing the novel's serialisation in Punch, the growth of the suburbs and the figure of Mrs Pooter.

George Grossmith (1847-1912) initially worked as a journalist, reporting Police Court proceedings for The Times. In 1870 he began his career as a singer and entertainer, creating some of the most memorable characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas.

Weedon Grossmith (1854-1919) brother of George, was educated at the Slade and the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter, and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Royal Academy. Joining a theatre company in 1885, he toured the provinces and America. The best-known of his many plays, The Night of the Party, was published in 1901.

If you enjoyed The Diary of a Nobody, you might like Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, also available in Penguin Classics.

'The funniest book in the world'
Evelyn Waugh

'True humour ... with its mixture of absurdity, irony and affection ... a masterpiece, immortal'
J.B. Priestley

About this title

Review

"There's a universality about Pooter that touches everybody...fits into the tradition of absurd humour that the British do well, which started with Jonathan Swift and runs through Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear to Monty Python" (Jasper Fforde Time Out)

"The funniest book in the world" (Evelyn Waugh)

"Pooter himself is as gentle as you could wish, a wonderful character, genuinely lovable. The book is beautifully constructed" (Andrew Davies Glasgow Herald)

"One of those rare books that nails a cultural archetype and has won the affection of successive generations" (The Times)

"The funniest book about a certain type of Englishness...there is a whole line of these comic characters like Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army, or Basil Fawlty" (Hugh Bonneville The Times)

Book Description

'Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see - because I do not happen to be a 'Somebody' - why my diary should not be interesting' Charles Pooter

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0140437320
• ISBN 13: 9780140437324
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Glinert Ed
• Illustrator: Grossmith Weedon