The Diary of a Nobody (Wordsworth Classics)

Grossmith, George; Grossmith, Weedon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853262013 ISBN 13: 9781853262012

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1994

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury.

The Diary of a Nobody is so unassuming a work that even its author, George Grossmith, seemed unaware that he had produced a masterpiece. For more than a century this wonderfully comic portrayal of suburban life and values has remained in print, a source of delight to generations of readers, and a major literary influence, much imitated but never equalled.

If you don't recognise yourself at some point in The Diary you are probably less than human. If you can read it without laughing aloud you have no sense of humour.

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