A cult comedy classic
GROSSMITH, George and Weedon (author and illustrator). Diary of a Nobody. Bristol J.W. Arrowsmith, 11 Quay Street. 1892

8vo.; publisher’s tan cloth decoratively blocked in light blue and black and lettered gilt to spine; pp. [v], vi-viii, [ix-xiii], 14-300 + [3], publisher’s ads.; with double portrait frontispiece and illustrations throughout in line, mostly full-page, with other half-page or text illustrations; an attractive copy with some external dusting and rubbing, a 5mm split to cloth at centre of spine, lower cover with light mottling and a couple of minor wrinkles to the cloth, internally clean, crisp, sound with slight marking to endpapers but without ownership inscription, one small corner fold.

First edition in book form, published in Arrowsmith’s 3/6 series, vol. XI, previously serialised in Punch magazine between 1888 and 1889  It is seen as a cult classic, which has imperiously withstood the test of time. Virginia Woolf, for example, praised it as the pinnacle of Engiish humour.

A beautifully observed comic masterpiece in the form of a diary, which details the mundane daily exertions of Charles Pooter, a lovable yet self-important lower-middle-class office clerk in Victorian London, related over 15 months.  Its humour lies in the divide between Pooter’s aggrandised view of this own social position contrasted with various debasements he experiences including minor humiliations, social gaffes and the frequent absurdities of his life in suburbia. His striving for respectability, the triviality of his worries, and his preoccupation with advancement evolve into a sharp social satire, but its humour is always gentle and character-driven.  Evelyn Waugh called it, “the funniest book in the world”.