Diary of a Nobody (1892)

Charles Pooter preserves the daily incidents he considers worth recording, including social failures whose meaning escapes him. The diary’s modest scale is its strength: invitations, household purchases and a son’s behaviour become evidence of class anxiety. George and Weedon Grossmith let the reader recognise more than Pooter intends to reveal. Choose it for sustained comic intimacy rather than a puzzle with a hidden culprit.