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 * Hilarious...I'm so fond of the book I named one of my cats Lupin -- Leslie Phillips A classic dig at self-importance in suburbia...as fresh and funny today as it was when it first came out in 1892. I defy any reader not to laugh out loud. -- Sue Macgregor * Daily Mail *

George and Weedon Grossmith were born in London in 1847 and 1852 respectively to a theatrical family who were friends with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. George became a popular composer and performer of comic songs as well as a successful actor. Weedon trained as a painter at the Slade and the Royal Academy, but soon turned to acting like his brother. The Diary of a Nobody began life as a series of columns the brothers wrote together for Punch which they later expanded into a novel. It was published in 1892, with Weedon's illustrations, to instant acclaim and has remained in print ever since. George died in 1912, followed by his brother in 1919.