The diary is that of a man who acknowledges that he is not a 'Somebody' - Charles Pooter of 'The Laurels', Brickfield Terrace, Holloway, a clerk in the City of London - and it chronicles in hilarious detail the everyday life of the lower middle class during the Great Victorian age.The roar of laughter which greeted the first serialised publication of The Diary of a Nobody in the magazine Punch in the late 188Os has continued and scarcely diminished ever since.Its evocation of the typical London middle-class suburb of the time is not only irresistibly funny,but is also a document of profound interest to all those with a fascination about the way we were.
The Diary of a Nobody is a very funny book. It recounts the everyday life of the Pooter family of The Laurels, Brickfield Terrace, Holloway. The paterfamilias, Mr Charles Pooter, is a clerk in a mercantile business in the City of London and he has a devoted wife,Carrie, and they have a young and rakish son, (Willie) Lupin Pooter. Mr Pooter is the sensitive "Nobody" striving for gentility against a life of unsuccessful dealings with decorators, errand boys,servants and tradesmen…and people who take offence. Then there is poor Mr Pooter"s obsession with telling a good joke.Through all his tribulations and desperate desire to be taken seriously, Mr Pooter has a firm belief- "... it"s the diary which makes the man. Where would Evelyn and Pepys have been if it had not been for their diaries?" Mr Pooter"s structured world belongs to the age of ledgers, quill pens, tall stools, and a strict social hierarchy.But social change is afoot, from the lack of respect the office boys show to those with years of service to the firm, to the dreadful recognition by Mr Pooter that the mention of the name of the boss he so reveres, Mr Perknpp, cuts no ice with the people he meets at the Lord Mayor"s Ball in the Mansion House. And the reader will be able to share the unfortunate Mr Pooter"s outrage when almost the first person he meets at the Lord Mayor"s Ball is the vulgar ironmonger, Mr Farmeson, who compounds his unwelcome intrusion by turning out to be a friend of one of the sheriffs.