George and Weedon Goldsmith's creation of the utterly pedestrian and irredeemably middle-class bank clerk 'Henry Pooter' is a work of comic genius. "Why should I not publish my diary?" Pooter asks at the start of the book, and the answer becomes blindingly, hilariously clear as he proceeds to detail the unremitting tedium of his life in all its hum-drum detail: straightening a Venetian blind, nailing down a loose carpet corner, or describing his trifling battles with 'tradesmen'. It is the authors' achievement that this litany of dull dreariness leaves the reader in stitches, and with a reluctant affection for their hero's character.