The Diary of a Nobody offers a double pleasure: it takes you back in time to an age that is presented with mocking but accurate affection, and the characters ring true for our time as well.

This delightful Victorian comic “diary” is a classic of British humor that has never been out of print since its first publication in 1892.

Meet Mr. Charles Pooter, perfectly average in every way. Actually, he doesn’t really like being average (he is a smidgen snobbish) but he certainly isn’t a ‘nobody’ either. Rather he is rather just one of us, a person trying to get ahead in life and be as successful as he can be in the face of life’s little disasters.

All families have their dysfunctional side, and the Pooter ‘black sheep’ is none other than his son Lupin, a young scoundrel who can’t seem to hold down a job and has taken to using slang and courting chorus girls.

The book first appeared as a serial in Punch Magazine between 1888 and 1889 and was published in book form in 1892.

It survives for a purely literary reason also: its tone is exactly right. It flirts with absurdity, but never goes too far. It’s a rare book, one that has perfect pitch, and so it continues to comfort and delight. Even to read only a few pages cheers you up.

WEEDON GROSSMITH was an English writer, painter, actor, and playwright best known as co-author of The Diary of a Nobody with his brother, music hall comedian and Gilbert and Sullivan star George Grossmith.

“Charles Pooter is a true Englishman both in his native gentleness and his impenetrable stupidity…”
—George Orwell

‘My favourite humorous book of all time.’
—Ruskin Bond

‘The funniest book in the world.’
—Evelyn Waugh, author of Brideshead Revisited