The Diary of a Nobody

‘I fail to see – because I do not happen to be a “Somebody” – why my diary should not be interesting’

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’s unsuitable choice of bride. Try as he might, he cannot avoid life’s embarrassing mishaps. In the bumbling, absurd yet ultimately endearing figure of Pooter, the Grossmiths created an immortal comic character and a superb satire on the snobberies of middle-class suburbia – one which also sends up 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, further reading and an introduction by Ed Glinert discussing the novel’s initial serialization in Punch, reactions to Pooter, the growth of suburbs and the figure of Mrs Pooter.