The Diary of a Nobody is an 1892 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 William 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 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.
Authorship and origin
thumb|left|[[George Grossmith|George (right) and Weedon Grossmith|alt=Two men in suits. There is a family resemblance.]]
The Diary of a Nobody was the work of George Grossmith and his brother Weedon Grossmith, the sons of a court reporter and part-time stage entertainer, also named George. The younger George followed his father, first as a reporter and later on the stage; the 7-years-younger Weedon studied at the West London School of Art and had some success as a portrait painter before becoming a comic actor.
By 1877 the younger George Grossmith had established himself as a comic piano sketch entertainer in provincial institutes and literary societies. In that year he was seen by Arthur Sullivan and, separately, by W. S. Gilbert, in performances of their one-act comic opera Trial by Jury. Impressed, they engaged him to play the comic lead in their new, full-length work, The Sorcerer. Thereafter, Grossmith created the leading comic role in each of Gilbert and Sullivan's long-running comic operas until The Yeomen of the Guard, which closed in 1889. writing numerous operettas, around 100 piano sketches, some 600 songs and short piano pieces, and three books. For Punch magazine in 1884 he provided a series of short sketches based on his experiences as a court reporter at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. suggests that many of the events depicted in it were drawn from the brothers' own home experiences, and that Weedon, "something of a scapegrace compared with his perfectionist brother", was the model for Lupin. 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 Perkupp's. 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. 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.
Early indifference
The Punch serialisation attracted little critical comment; The Athenaeums literary critic thought the series "may have escaped unnoticed amid better jokes". However, apart from a warmly approving report in The Saturday Review, the book's initial critical reception was lukewarm. The Reviews 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 Speakers 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.
Growing reputation
thumb|upright|[[Augustine Birrell, the Edwardian cabinet minister, was one of the Diarys greatest admirers.|alt=A drawing of a man of intellectual appearance]]
By 1910 the Diary was beginning to achieve a reputation in London's literary and political circles. In his essay "On People in Books", published earlier that year, the writer and humourist Hilaire Belloc hailed the Diary as "one of the half-dozen immortal achievements of our time ... a glory for us all". Among others who recorded their appreciation of the work were Lord Rosebery, the former prime minister, who told Arrowsmiths that he thought he had "purchased and given away more copies than any living man ... I regard any bedroom I occupy as unfurnished without a copy of it". Another essayist-cum-politician who added his tribute was Augustine Birrell, who in 1910 occupied the cabinet post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Birrell wrote that he ranked Charles Pooter alongside Don Quixote as a comic literary figure, and added a note of personal pride that one of the characters in the book—"an illiterate charwoman, it is true"—carried his name. Arrowsmiths printed these appreciations as prefaces in the 1910 and subsequent issues. The 1910 edition proved immediately popular with the reading public, and was followed by numerous reprintings.