The Diary of a Nobody

"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

George Grossmith, an English humorist, writer, composer, actor, and singer, lived from 9 December 1847 to 1 March 1912. Over four decades made up his performing career. He produced 18 humorous operas, approximately 100 musical sketches, 600 songs and piano compositions, three books, as well as serious and lighthearted articles for newspapers and publications. Weedon and George Grossmith are brothers. Walter Weedon Grossmith, also known as Weedon Grossmith, was an English writer, painter, actor, and playwright. He is best known for co-authoring The Diary of a Nobody (1892) with his brother, the music hall comedian, and Gilbert and Sullivan performer George Grossmith. Walter Weedon Grossmith lived from 9 June 1854 to 14 June 1919. Weedon Grossmith received praise for his illustrations in The Diary of a Nobody. Before and during his time with Gilbert and Sullivan, Grossmith was also well-known for delivering his own humorous piano sketches and songs, making him the most well-liked British solo performer of the 1890s. Weedon Grossmith had a background in painting but was unable to support himself in that field, so he turned to acting mostly for financial gain. He wrote several plays and was a successful impresario, and performer.¿

The Diary of a Nobody, the spoof diary of Charles Pooter, a London clerk, first appeared as a book in 1892 and has never been out of print since. The hilariously trivial doings of the accident-prone Pooter, his wife Carrie and their troublesome son Lupin have inspired many writers since, including the authors of Bridget Jones's Diary and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. The satirical novelist Evelyn Waugh called it "the funniest book in the world." This enduring classic of Victorian social comedy is now available in a newly edited Broadview edition.

This edition includes a critical introduction, comprehensive notes on the many historical allusions in the text, and a wide selection of relevant contemporary materials on the clerk's life, suburbia, spiritualism, and domestic economy. A selection of Weedon Grossmith's original illustrations also accompanies the novel.