Diary Of A Nobody

Product Description

Channelling a razor-sharp satire through the everyday mishaps of the immortal comic character Mr Pooter George & Weedon. Grossmiths The Diary of a Nobody" is edited with an introduction & notes by Ed Glinert in " Penguin Classics". 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 & wayward friends not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. In the bumbling absurd yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system & the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle-class suburbia
- one which sends up the late Victorian crazes for Aestheticism spiritualism & bicycling as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody & everybody. This edition contains the original illustrations by Weedon Grossmith & an introduction by Ed Glinert author of " The London Compendium" discussing the novels serialisation in " Punch" the growth of the suburbs & the figure of Mrs Pooter. George Grossmith (1847-1912) initially worked as a journalist reporting Police Court proceedings for " The Times". In 1870 he began his career as a singer & entertainer creating some of the most memorable characters in Gilbert & Sullivans operettas. Weedon Grossmith (1854-1919) brother of George was educated at the Slade & the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter & exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery & the Royal Academy. Joining a theatre company in 1885 he toured the provinces & America. The best-known of his many plays " The Night of the Party" was published in 1901. If you enjoyed " The Diary of a Nobody" you might like Jerome K. Jeromes " Three Men in a Boat" also available in " Penguin Classics". " The funniest book in the world." (" Evelyn Waugh"). " True humour.. .with its mixture of absurdity irony & affection.. .a masterpiece immortal." (J.B. Priestley)."