Published by the Folio Society, London 1969.
 
The book is in excellent condition, with yellow cloth over boards, with brown decoration on the covers, in a sketch of a man walking past a house. Binding is square and tight. Top page edges are the same blue as the endpapers. The corners are clean, with no bumping or wear. The covers are clean and bright. Several black and white illustrations throughout by John Lawrence. Slipcase is also in good condition, with some very slight rubbing. 
 
The Diary of a Nobody has lasted, it was the work of two brothers, George and Weedon Grossmith. George, best-known in his time as a star of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, did most of the writing, Weedon the illustrations. The Diary was first published in instalments in Punch in 1888, and didn't appear in book form for another three years. It started as a spoof, mocking the proliferation of diaries and memoirs. Punch had already published spoof diaries of a pessimist, a dyspeptic, a duffer and an MP. Everybody who was Anybody was publishing diaries, so why shouldn t a Nobody?
 
The Nobody is Mr Pooter, a clerk in the City. He lives with his wife Carrie in a six-roomed house, in Holloway. They have a maidservant, Sarah, and their son Willie works in a bank in Oldham. Early in the diary he is dismissed and returns home, unperturbed, and announcing that he will henceforth be known by his middle name Lupin. Lupin is a live wire and chancer, everything the staid and correct Pooter isn t, and a cause of anxiety to his father. Mr Pooter has a strong sense of his own dignity, which is all too often disturbed, because he is sadly accident-prone and gets himself into ridiculous situations. Yet he remains wonderfully complacent.