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THE DIARY OF A NOBODY
broadview editions
series editor:L.W.Conolly
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Diary of a Nobody main 9/16/08 10:12 AM Page 3
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THE DIARY OF A NOBODY
George and Weedon Grossmith
edited by Peter Morton
broadview editions
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© Peter Morton
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in any form or
by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,or stored in a
retrieval system,without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying,
a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),One Yonge Street,Suite
,Toronto,ON —is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Grossmith,George,–.
The diary of a nobody / George & Weedon Grossmith ;edited by Peter Morton.
(Broadview editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
978-1-55111-704-1
I.Grossmith,Weedon,–. II.Morton,Peter,Apr.– III.Title. IV.Series.
pr6013.r82d53 2008 823'.8 c2008-905083-5
Broadview Editions
The Broadview Editions series represents the ever-changing canon of literature by bringing together
texts long regarded as classics with valuable lesser-known works.
Advisory editor for this volume:Denis Johnston
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Contents
Acknowledgements •
Introduction •
George and Weedon Grossmith:A Brief Chronology •
A Note on the Text •
The Diary of a Nobody •
Appendix A:Contemporary Reviews •
. From Baron de B.W.& Co.,“Our Booking Office,”
Punch, ( June ) •
. From The Saturday Review, ( June ) •
. From The Athenaeum ( August ) •
. From The Literary World, ( July ) •
. From The Speaker, ( August ) •
. From The New York Times (December ) •
. Publisher’s Note to the “new edition”of
( October ) •
. From The Bookman [London],
(December ) •
. From The Bookman[London],
(December ) •
. From Xanthias,Queen’s Quarterly, () •
Appendix B:The Clerk’s Lot in Life •
. From Charles Edward Parsons,Clerks;
Their Position and Advancement () •
. From The Clerk:A Sketch in Outline of His Duties and
Discipline () •
. From Francis Davenant,Starting in Life:
Hints for Parents on the Choice of a Profession or
Trade for Their Sons () •
. From The Story of a London Clerk:
A Faithful Narrative Faithfully Told () •
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. From Charles Booth,ed.,Life and Labour of the
People in London () •
. From Robert White,“Wanted:A Rowton House for
Clerks,”Nineteenth Century,(October ) •
. From Shan Bullock,Robert Thorne:The Story of a
London Clerk () •
Appendix C:Domestic Economy at The Laurels •
. From G.S.Layard,“A Lower Middle-Class Budget,”
Cornhill Magazine, (Jan–June ) •
Appendix D:Suburban Fictions in the Wake of the Diary •
. From R.Andom,Martha and I:Being Scenes from Our
Suburban Life () •
. From W.Pett Ridge,Outside the Radius:Stories of a
London Suburb () •
. From Barry Pain,Eliza () •
. From Keble Howard,The Smiths of Surbiton:A Comedy
without a Plot () •
Appendix E:Séances in the Suburbs •
. From Morell Theobald,Spirit Workers in the Home
Circle () •
. From Florence Marryat,There Is No Death
() •
. From Barry Pain,Eliza Getting On () •
Appendix F:Suburban Life and its Critics •
. From Geoffrey Mortimer,The Blight of Respectability
() •
. From H.G.Wells,The War of the Worlds () •
. From T.W.H.Crosland,The Suburbans () •
. From C.F.G.Masterman,In Peril of Change:
Essays Written in Time of Tranquillity () •
. From C.F.G.Masterman,The Condition of England
() •
Works Cited and Recommended Reading •
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Acknowledgements
Surprisingly for a popular book that has never been out of print,
The Diary of a Nobodyhas never been properly edited before.This
lack has drawn some comment:for example,in his Inventing the
Victorians (),Matthew Sweet wondered why,when it is so
“Zeitgeistish,”more attention hasn’t been paid to the very numer-
ous contemporary allusions in the Diary. Perhaps one reason is
that some of these allusions are so obscure that they have proved
hard to identify even with the help of specialist historians.I thank
the following people and institutions for helping me resolve
specific issues dealt with in this edition:Tony Joseph,George
Grossmith’s biographer and a fund of information about his life
and writings,and Leon Berger,an expert on his musical career;
Victoria Arrowsmith, Richard Dennis, Judith Flanders, John
George,Jim Hammerton,Lynne Hapgood,Michael Kilgarriff,Val
Pope,Dil Porter,and John Turner.I am also grateful for the detec-
tive work of my research assistant,Melinda Graefe;and thanks also
to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,University of
Texas,for supplying a copy of Evelyn Waugh’s own annotated
copy of the Diary.
As always,I am grateful to the School of Humanities,Flinders
University,for its financial and other generous support that have
enabled me to finish this task within the contract period.
As the textual notes demonstrate,the Oxford English Dictionary
(and its helpful editorial staff) have assisted in clarifying numer-
ous linguistic details.The online OED gives citations for the
noun “Pooter”dating between and and for the adjec-
tive “Pooterish”between and .The OED cites the
Diary twelve times,and of these citations five illustrate the first,
or joint-first,recorded usage of a word.Most of these are slang
expressions,and suggest the Grossmiths took good care to make
Lupin Pooter’s talk sound thoroughly modern.
Sweet (),.
Flint (),xii,claims the Oxford English Dictionarycredits the Diary“with over
twenty neologisms.”In fact the five citations in the current () online version of
the OED illustrating a first usage are for:“blithering idiot,”“bread-pills,”“bussing,”
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Introduction
The Diary of a Nobody,the diary of Charles Pooter,a fictional clerk
in late-Victorian London,first appeared as an anonymous serial in
the British humour magazine Punch,or the London Charivari in
–.Each weekly issue of Punch,which came out on Saturdays,
contained cartoons on political and social themes,comic stories and
poems,and satirical comment on issues of the day.Its editor was
Frank Burnand (–),a lawyer with a taste for the stage and
a prolific author of comic plays and sketches.It was he who devised
the Diary’s title and added this footnote to the first episode:“As
everybody who is anybody is publishing Reminiscences,Diaries,
Notes,Autobiographies,and Recollections,we are sincerely grate-
ful to “A Nobody”for permitting us to add to the historic collec-
tion.” This is a good-humoured dig at a friend and one of the
authors of the Diary,George Grossmith,a famous actor and song-
writer.Burnand knew that Grossmith,then aged forty,was writing
an autobiography.Called A Society Clown,it appeared in August
,three months into the run of the Punchserial of the Diary.
Nothing is known of what the Punch readers thought of the
serial.However,its reception must have been sufficiently encour-
aging for its authors to go further.Some three years later,in July
,a longer version appeared as a book,under the imprint of
the publisher J.W.Arrowsmith.The authors were now identified
as the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith.
The publisher was based in Bristol,and it may seem strange that
the brothers,centred as they were on London’s theatrical and artis-
tic life,should have offered the book to a provincial company.But
there were good reasons.Arrowsmith had commissioned A Society
Clown from George Grossmith,who later claimed that ,
copies of it were sold in the month of publication. Also,
Arrowsmith had had a great success with Jerome K.Jerome’s comic
“cert”and “chuck.”For the first of these,the citation is given only as “Punch
Feb.,”but it is in fact a quotation from the Diary.
Punch,(May ),.
In an interview in .See Banfield (),.
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novel Three Men in a Boat,which had also appeared first as a serial,
so for the Grossmiths the company was the obvious choice.
Who Wrote the Diary?
The short answer to this question is that the Grossmith brothers,
George and Weedon,wrote it in collaboration.It is usually assumed
that George,familiarly known in theatrical circles as “GG”or “Gee
Gee,”wrote all the text and Weedon (“Wee-Gee”),who worked
as an artist,drew the illustrations for the book version.The evidence
for this is quite good.Punchpaid George alone for all the episodes.
He was no stranger to Punch,his main contribution to it being a
series of skits based on his police-court experiences,called “Very
Trying.”George himself had featured in some of its good-natured
cartoons,in connection with his key roles in the Gilbert and
Sullivan operas.Certainly he was,in ,the most verbally creative
of the brothers.He was a formidably prolific song and sketch
writer,being the author,eventually,of more than eighty sketches,
at least songs,the music for seven operettas,and a quantity of
other occasional pieces for Punch and elsewhere.
But Weedon had his literary successes too,though they all
date from after the Diary.He published a novel in and was
the sole author of at least nine plays.As a actor he specialised in
Pooterish comical and farcical roles. What is more, after he
returned from an American theatrical tour in Weedon
stayed with George and his family for eighteen months.He was
certainly living with them early in May at the time when
the Diarywas presumably being conceived.However,according
to Weedon’s recollections much later,they “did not see so very
much of each other,”as he was painting in a studio during the
day and,like his brother,acting in the evening.
GG’s biographer discovered this from the Puncharchives.See Joseph (),.
“Very Trying:a Record of a Few Trials of Patience”appeared in Punch in ten
episodes,January-April .
Kilgarriff () lists songs and sketches,but Joseph’s unpublished bibliography
() is far more extensive.
Grossmith (),.Weedon reproduces there a telegram to himself addressed to
Dorset Square and postmarked May.George was then playing in a revival of The
Pirates of Penzance.
