The Diary of a Nobody
Meet Charles Pooter: a man of modest means and monumental self-regard, clerk in the City and king of his little house in Holloway. Over the course of a year, he records in his diary the small triumphs and spectacular humiliations of lower-middle-class Victorian life: the dinner party that goes wrong, the friends who never visit, the boss who forgets his name, the son's disastrous career choices. What seems at first like the diary of an ordinary nobody reveals itself as something far more delightful: a precise, affectionate, devastating portrait of a man who takes himself very seriously indeed. George Grossmith's 1892 masterpiece of comic fiction gave English literature one of its most enduring archetypes, and it still lands today with the precise, gentle accuracy of a slap in the face. You will recognize every character here, because you have met them, or been them, or fled from them at parties. The mundane has never been so magnificently observed.
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“I never was so immensely tickled by anything I had ever said before. I actually woke up twice during the night, and laughed till the bed shook.””
— George Grossmith
“What's the good of a home, if you are never in it?””
— George Grossmith
“Some people seem quite destitute a sense of humour.””
— George Grossmith
“. . . doesn't it seem odd that Gowing's always coming and Cummings' always going?””
— George Grossmith
“Charlie dear, it is I who have to be proud of you. And I am very, very proud of you. You have called me pretty; and as long as I am pretty in your eyes, I am happy. You, dear old Charlie, are not handsome, but you are good, which is far more noble.””
— George Grossmith
“He said he wouldn’t stay, as he didn’t care much for the smell of the paint, and fell over the scraper as he went out. Must get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. I don’t often make jokes.””
— George Grossmith
“I believe I am happy because I am not ambitious.””
— George Grossmith
“He may wear what he likes in the future, for I shall never drive with him again. His conduct was shocking. When we passed Highgate Archway, he tried to pass everything and everybody. He shouted to respectable people who were walking quietly in the road to get out of the way; he flicked at the horse of an old man who was riding, causing it to rear; and, as I had to ride backwards, I was compelled to face a gang of roughs in a donkey-cart, whom Lupin had chaffed, and who turned and followed us for nearly a mile, bellowing, indulging in coarse jokes and laughter, to say nothing of occasionally pelting us with orange-peel.””
— George Grossmith
“It’s concerning you both; for doesn’t it seem odd that Gowing’s always coming and Cummings’ always going?” ””
— George Grossmith
