The Diary of a Nobody, by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith

"Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see—because I do not happen to be a 'Somebody'—why my diary should not be interesting."

The preface to book editions of The Diary of a Nobody, wherein "Charles Pooter" announces his intentions

The Diary of a Nobody is an English comic novel written by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, with illustrations by the latter. It originated as an intermittent serial in Punch magazine in 1888–89 and first appeared in book form, with extended text and added illustrations, in 1892. The Diary records the daily events in the lives of a London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie, his son Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances over a period of 15 months.

Before their collaboration on the Diary, the brothers each pursued successful careers on the stage. George originated nine of the principal comedian roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas over 12 years from 1877 to 1889. He also established a national reputation as a piano sketch entertainer and wrote a large number of songs and comic pieces. Before embarking on his stage career, Weedon had worked as an artist and illustrator. The Diary was the brothers' only mature collaboration. Most of its humour derives from Charles Pooter's unconscious and unwarranted sense of his own importance, and the frequency with which this delusion is punctured by gaffes and minor social humiliations. In an era of rising expectations within the lower-middle classes, the daily routines and modest ambitions described in the Diary were instantly recognised by its contemporary readers, and provided later generations with a glimpse of the past that it became fashionable to imitate.

Although its initial public reception was muted, the Diary came to be recognised by critics as a classic work of humour, and it has never been out of print. It helped to establish a genre of humorous popular fiction based on lower or lower-middle class aspirations, and was the forerunner of numerous fictitious diary novels in the later 20th century. The Diary has been the subject of several stage and screen adaptations, including Ken Russell's "silent film" treatment of 1964, a four-part TV film scripted by Andrew Davies in 2007, and a widely praised stage version in 2011, in which an all-male cast of three played all the parts.

George  and Weedon Grossmith

July 2, 2000

BOOKEND / By JIM HOLT / http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/02/bookend/bookend.html

I Yield to Nobody

 As much as I liked ''Topsy-Turvy,'' Mike Leigh's movie about Gilbert and Sullivan, I did find one thing about it unsettling. Who was that diminutive, pallid, pince-nez-wearing and rather epicene actor in the D'Oyly Carte opera company, the one who was shown in his dressing room tearfully jabbing his needle-scarred forearm with a hypo full of heroin? After I noticed the other characters in the film address this fellow first as ''Mr. Grossmith'' and then as ''George,'' the penny dropped: Why, that must be George Grossmith -- the man who, after chucking his career with Gilbert and Sullivan, went on to write a book that I cherish above all others, a book that I have repeatedly rejoiced in reading, a book that has been my prop and stay in troubled times: ''The Diary of a Nobody.''

I am hardly alone in rating ''The Diary of a Nobody'' a singular work of genius. From the time it was published in 1892 (with illustrations by George Grossmith's brother, Weedon), it began to collect enthusiastic admirers. Hilaire Belloc deemed it ''one of the half-dozen immortal achievements of our time . . . a glory for us all.'' It was a favorite of T. S. Eliot and John Betjeman. Evelyn Waugh declared it to be ''the funniest book in the world'' and had his character Lady Marchmain read passages from it aloud to her family in ''Brideshead Revisited.''

''The Diary of a Nobody'' began as a series in the English humor magazine Punch in the late 1880's. The entries were supposedly written by one Charles Pooter, a bearded, frock-coated, middle-aged clerk who worked in an old-fashioned City of London firm and lived in a tidy little house in the suburb of Holloway. ''Why should I not publish my diary?'' he asks at the outset. ''I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see -- because I do not happen to be a 'Somebody' -- why my diary should not be interesting.'' Pooter meticulously records his little experiments in home improvement, his encounters with impertinent tradespeople, his anxieties over the antics of his rapscallion son, Lupin, his tender (if occasionally strained) moments with his dear little wife, Carrie, his social evenings at home with his bosom friends Mr. Cummings and Mr. Gowing -- all the small triumphs and minor humiliations and homely pleasures of everyday life as lived in a lower-middle-class household in the late Victorian era.

Pooter is rather dim. He is also priggish, gullible and anxious about keeping up appearances. Little mishaps mar his days (''May 30. . . . As I heard the 'bus coming, I left with a hurried kiss -- a little too hurried, perhaps, for my upper lip came in contact with Carrie's teeth and slightly cut it. It was quite painful for an hour afterwards.'') Though he is unable to laugh at his own absurdity, he piques himself on his humor and is given to laborious puns:

''May 25. Carrie brought down some of my shirts and advised me to take them to Trillip's round the corner. She said: 'The fronts and cuffs are much frayed.' I said without a moment's hesitation: 'I'm frayed they are.' Lor! how we roared. I thought we should never stop laughing. As I happened to be sitting next the driver going to town on the 'bus, I told him my joke about the 'frayed' shirts. I thought he would have rolled off his seat. They laughed at the office a good bit too over it.

''May 26. Left the shirts to be repaired at Trillip's. I said to him: 'I'm 'fraid they are frayed.' He said, without a smile: 'They're bound to do that, sir.' Some people seem to be quite destitute of a sense of humor.''

The quiet reproofs by which Pooter intends to preserve his self-importance never quite come off. (When a cheeky office boy tells him to keep his hair on, Pooter gravely informs him that ''I had had the honor of being in the firm 20 years, to which he insolently replied that I 'looked it.' '') Such is his sense of petit-bourgeois propriety that he is unable to acknowledge the cause of his occasional hangovers, blaming not the dubious Champagne he thriftily favors (''Jackson Frères'' from the grocer around the corner) but the ''unsettled weather'' or having been ''poisoned by some lobster.''

Of the three humorous character types found in literature -- the comic rogue, the comic butt and the solemn fool -- Pooter comes closest to the third type, which, I would argue, is generally the most amusing. Nothing is funnier than solemnity. But if Pooter inspires mirth in the reader, he also elicits an equal measure of affection. He may be hedged about by absurdity, but he is a thoroughly decent man, touching in his anxiety to do the right thing. He is honest, loyal and kind. His diary is suffused with sweet suburban wisdom. When his son announces what seems to be a premature engagement to a doubtfully suitable woman, Pooter records the following:

''Carrie and I talked the matter over during the evening, and agreed that it did not always follow that an early engagement meant an unhappy marriage. Dear Carrie reminded me that we married early, and, with the exception of a few trivial misunderstandings, we had never had a really serious word. I could not help thinking (as I told her) that half the pleasures of life were derived from the little struggles and small privations that one had to endure at the beginning of one's married life. . . .

''Carrie said I had expressed myself wonderfully well, and that I was quite a philosopher.''

It is little wonder that this oddly dignified embodiment of Everyman has stamped the English language with his own adjective: ''Pooterish.'' (This, by the way, is one of some 20 coinages that the Oxford English Dictionary attributes to ''The Diary of a Nobody,'' along with ''I've got the chuck!'' for being fired from one's job; ''a good address''; and ''bread-pills'' for those little missiles sometimes launched across the dinner table.) What is a wonderment is how George Grossmith (1847-1912), Pooter's creator, could himself have been the highly un-Pooterish chap depicted in ''Topsy-Turvy'' -- a drug-addicted thespian, no less. My curiosity having been aroused by the film, I did a little digging into Grossmith's life (courtesy of the New York Public Library's splendid performing arts collection). I discovered that he was indeed short, pale and rather severe-looking in his pince-nez; that according to one contemporary, he had a ''dry, odd manner''; and that according to another, he did resort to drugs to steady his stage nerves, his arms being spotted with unsightly needle marks as a result. Beyond that, however, there was nothing the least bit lugubrious about him. To the contrary, he seems to have been a model of Victorian robustness, energy and cheer. When he wasn't creating the great roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory -- the Lord Chancellor in ''Iolanthe,'' Sir Joseph Porter in ''H.M.S. Pinafore,'' Ko-Ko in ''The Mikado'' -- he was tearing about the British Isles with his piano in a one-man ''Humorous and Musical Recital.'' When he performed in New York in 1892, the critic for The New York Herald wrote: ''Two minutes after the dapper little fellow, typically English in manner and voice, but extremely modest and pleasing in his address, had appeared onstage, a broad smile crept over the faces of the audience. It stayed there all evening.'' Known familiarly as Gee Gee, he was a clubbable fellow, entertaining at his home on Dorset Square such contemporaries as Whistler, Wilde and Marie Corelli. He loved lawn tennis, skating and fishing. He was happily married, the father of four children, one of whom, Gee Gee Jr., was to become a leading London stage figure in his own right.

Grossmith seems to have regarded ''The Diary of a Nobody'' as something tossed off in an idle moment, never giving it publicly so much as a mention. But whereas his greatness as a performer was bound to fade with time, the ''Diary,'' as the foreword to the 1945 Penguin edition put it, ''lives on in print to be read anew by generation after generation, exactly as it was written.''

Or does it? Today, I am afraid, ''The Diary of a Nobody'' falls into that sad category, Forgotten Masterpieces. A few people still read it in England, where it has been dramatized on television and radio and has inspired many imitators (of which ''Bridget Jones's Diary,'' by Helen Fielding, might be counted as one of the more successful). But in the United States it is all but unknown. Although a couple of paperback editions remain in print, I have not seen a copy in a Manhattan bookstore in the last decade. Few of my literary friends, even the Anglophiles among them, profess to have heard of it. Whenever I attempt to use the word ''Pooterish'' in an article, some damned ignorant editor always takes it out. Academic lit-crit types have shown scant interest in the ''Diary,'' despite its wealth of what I suppose must be called ''cultural signifiers'' -- popular song titles, references to late Victorian fads like spiritualism, clues to the ideology of home and marriage at the dawn of suburbia.

Indeed, ''The Diary of a Nobody'' is the first real critique of suburban life, at least as it was lived in the miles and miles of little red-brick houses that began to swallow up the countryside around London in the 19th century. But unlike the later literature of suburbia -- with its tiresome emphasis on soul-numbing banality and, especially these days, gruesome dysfunction -- Pooter's jottings manage to convey the essential wholesomeness of suburban folkways. Despite his limited vision, he is a noble character, precariously striving to uphold propriety in the face of a rude world. (''I left the room with silent dignity, but caught my foot in the mat.'') So, when it comes to choosing an existential hero, you can take Nietzsche's Zarathustra, or Proust's Marcel, or even Roth's Zuckerman, thank you very much. I'll plump for Pooter. 

"It is not so funny that an occasional interruption would be resented, and such thread of story as runs through it can be grasped and followed without much strain on the attention ... it is rather difficult to get really interested in the sayings and doings of either the Pooter family or their friends."

Review of The Diary of a Nobody, The Literary World, 29 July 1892

 The Diary made its initial appearance as an intermittent serial in the satirical weekly magazine Punch. The first of the 26 instalments was announced in the issue of 26 May 1888 with a brief editorial note: "As everybody who is anybody is publishing Reminiscences, Diaries, Notes, Autobiographies, and Recollections, we are sincerely grateful to 'A Nobody' for permitting us to add to the historic collection". The diary entry dates are several weeks behind the dates on which they appear in Punch. The Punch serialisation ended in May 1889 with the diary entry for 21 March, which records the Pooters and their friends celebrating the minor triumph of Lupin's appointment as a clerk at Perkupps. That was the intended end of the diary; however, when the writers were preparing the manuscript for publication as a book, they added a further four months' entries to the text, and included 26 illustrations by Weedon Grossmith.

In June 1892 J.W. Arrowsmith Ltd published the Diary in book form, although its critical and popular success was not evident until the third edition appeared in October 1910. After the First World War the book's popularity continued to grow; regular reprintings and new editions ensured that thereafter the book was never out of print. Audiobook versions have been available since 1982. The writer Robert McCrum, in a personal list of "The 100 greatest novels of all time" published in The Observer newspaper, listed the Diary at number 35.

 The Punch serialisation attracted little critical comment; The Athenaeum '​s literary critic thought the series "may have escaped unnoticed amid better jokes". When the Diary was published as a book, Punch heralded it in its issue of 23 July 1892 as "very funny", adding: "not without a touch of pathos". However, apart from a warmly approving report in The Saturday Review, the book's initial critical reception was lukewarm. The Review '​s critic thought the book "admirable, and in some of its touches [it] goes close to genius", with a natural and irresistible appeal: "The Diary has amused us from cover to cover". This contrasted with the negative judgement of The Athenaeum, which opined that "the book has no merit to compensate for its hopeless vulgarity, not even that of being amusing". It questioned the tastefulness of jokes aimed almost exclusively at the poverty of underpaid city clerks, and concluded: "Besides, it is all so dull". The Speaker '​s critic thought the book "a study in vulgarity", while The New York Times, reviewing the first American edition, found the work largely incomprehensible: "There is that kind of quiet, commonplace, everyday joking in it which we are to suppose is highly satisfactory to our cousins across the water ... Our way of manufacturing fun is different".Although details of sales figures are not given, Arrowsmiths later acknowledged that the early editions of the book did not have a wide public impact.

A CLASSIC--BETTER PERFORMED THAN READ--THE FIRST OF LONDON SOCIAL SATIRE

By Harold Wolf TOP 50 REVIEWER on July 23, 2009

Format: DVD

http://www.amazon.com/THE-DIARY-OF-A-NOBODY/dp/B001UWOLQ6#customerReviews

Mr. Charles Pooter, the diary author in "THE DIARY OF A NOBODY", is a nobody, but he simply fails to notice. He is content with life, almost. He presents his diary in a verbal (in this DVD)format, speaking directly to the camera. He most enthusiastically orates about his common middle-class social and family events (the very ones he's written in the diary.) He feels assured the world will eventually enjoy his written diary--when published. Is he the Suburban Snob of 1892? Certainly it's perfected pompousness.

I can not imagine "THE DIARY OF A NOBODY" being as funny without hearing and seeing Pooter (Hugh Bonneville) presenting the diary in dialogue. It's strictly British humor, but at it's Victorian finest. Bonneville's ability to project emotion and expressions is near perfection. Hugh Bonneville can say as much with a lifted eyebrow, an eye roll, a gesture, or a voice change, as what is provided in the script.

In Pooter's written (spoken in this DVD version) accounts, he makes the occasional joke--usually unappreciated by others. A time or two Pooter laughs so hard at his own merriment that he resembles Red Skelton's famous moments of belly-laughing at his own humor.

Pooter loves his 'Home Sweet Home' which is near the rail tracks. He had just moved into the new rental as the diary began, April of 1891. The diary ends in May of 1892. The home is called The Laurels (even though it has no laurels growing, but Pooter and his wife, Carrie, might plant some). It is London, suburbia, Victorian, and the train traffic makes the house quake frequently. But Pooter adjusts. The many views of the 6 or 7 rooms, as well as Pooter's employment location, provides a complete, delightful look at London Victorian living in a middle-class dwelling. Furnished with period pieces and accents, right down to the tea cups and boot scrapper (which is a constant complaint). And the Christmas holiday tops off the Victorian aesthetics. WOW!

So what does Pooter write about? Lupin, the not-so-perfect son and his engagement with a not-so-perfect, older, fatter, uglier, Miss Daisy Mutlar. Spouse spats. His boss, Mr. Perkupp, and Pooter's downns and upps with Perkupp. Social engagements gone afoul or well. Costs, especially with drinks. Stocks, encouraged by his son. Bad lobsters. Friends, Cummings and Gowing, and their comings and goings. And that darn boot scrapper.

The DVD features explained that the term "Pooterism" (taking oneself too seriously) evolved from this work first published in a magazine (1888), then book in 1882 (still in print today), this film via BBC (2007), and now this DVD. The book was written by brothers, George & Weedon Grossmith, biography also in the bonus stuff.

Plus more, but no subtitles--BOOGER!

4 episodes totaling just shy of two hours. In the end my wife and I had enjoyed actor, Hugh Bonneville, as Charles Pooter so much, we finally ceased smiling and laughing. Why? It was over. Sad to see it end.

If you like the subtlety of British comedy, then you'll LOVE this CLASSIC British humor book brought to film/DVD. An astonishing one man show. Listen to Pooter's words, watch him, "For he's the jolly good fellow."