Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbor, Mr. Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed.

THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION FEATURING A BRAND-NEW INTRODUCTION FROM CAITLIN MORAN 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written' ADAM KAY, GUARDIAN 'Every child in the country should receive a copy on their thirteenth birthday' CAITLIN MORAN 'One of literature's most endearing figures. Mole is an excellent guide for all of us' OBSERVER **In 2022 Sue Townsend was awarded the Legacy Achievement Award by the Comedy Women in Print prize** AS SEEN IN THE TIMES ________ Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home. Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life as he writes candidly about the dog, his parents' marital troubles and life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual.' Forty years after it first appeared, Sue Townsend's comic masterpiece continues to be rediscovered by new generations of readers. ________ 'The UK's bestselling fiction book of the eighties and one of the great comic creations of the past half-century. Impeccable comic timing, evergreen comic writing. I had more pure reading pleasure than from any other book I read this year' John Self, The Times 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'One of Britain's most celebrated comic writers' GUARDIAN

One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools, this is Sue Townsend's wry and witty diary of the adolescent Adrian Mole.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 is the first book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home. Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual', Adrian's painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared. Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades. 'I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading' Tom Sharpe 'A satire of our times. Very funny indeed' Sunday Times 'We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful' Heat Sue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 553/4), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

A joyful anniversary edition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Richmal Crompton's bestselling, much-loved classic Just William - updated for a new generation of readers. Featuring the original text illustrations by Thomas Henry and an introduction by Sue Townsend. 'William is as fresh and funny as ever' - Chris Riddell 'Gloriously funny' - Sue Townsend, author of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 There is only one William. This tousle-headed, snub-nosed, hearty, lovable bundle of mischief has been harassing his unfortunate family and delighting his hundreds of thousands of admirers since 1922. Whether he's meant to be babysitting, putting on a show with his trusty gang of friends, the Outlaws, or meeting his faithful dog, Jumble, William Brown always has a new scheme up his sleeve. His intentions are good but nothing ever quite goes to plan in this hilarious collection of eleven stories about everyone's favourite troublemaker. Enjoy more of William's adventures in More William, William Again, William the Outlaw and William at Christmas.

'A satire of our times. Very funny indeed' Sunday Times 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY FEATURED IN 'THE 100 BOOKS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' BBC ARTS The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 is the first book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home. Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual', Adrian's painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared. _________ NOW A MAJOR MUSICAL 'I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading' Tom Sharpe 'We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful' Heat

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole is the second book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Sunday July 18th My father announced at breakfast that he is going to have a vasectomy. I pushed my sausages away untouched. In this second instalment of teenager Adrian Mole's diaries, the Mole family is in crisis and the country is beating the drum of war. While his parents have reconciled after both embarked on disastrous affairs, Adrian is shocked to learn of his mother's pregnancy. And even though at the mercy of his rampant hormones and the fickle whims of the divine Pandora, a victim of a broken home and his own tortured (though unrecognised) genius, Adrian continues valiantly to chronicle the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence. ________ 'Funny, moving and a poke in the eye for adult morality' Sunday Express 'Written with great verve, and showing an uncanny understanding of the young, Sue Townsend holds the balance between innocence and precocity and the result is both hilarious and salutary' Daily Telegraph 'Life's no fun for an adolescent intellectual. For the reader it's a hoot' New Statesman

A tousle-headed, snub-nosed, hearty, lovable ball of mischief, William Brown has been harassing his unfortunate family and delighting his hundreds of thousands of admirers since 1922. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features original illustrations by Thomas Henry and a foreword by novelist, dramatist and screenwriter Roddy Doyle. Just William is Richmal Crompton's first book about the incorrigible William Brown. Follow his adventures from getting over a school teacher crush to a failed attempt at baby-sitting, and from throwing a wild party to meeting his faithful dog Jumble in this hilarious collection of stories.

'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday Times In the third instalment of the hilarious Adrian Mole series, 16-year-old Adrian navigates his way into adulthood . . . Monday June 13th I had a good, proper look at myself in the mirror tonight. I've always wanted to look clever, but at the age of twenty years and three months I have to admit that I look like a person who has never even heard of Jung or Updike. Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still, without the slings and arrows of modern life what else would an intellectual poet have to write about . . . __________ 'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see in it' Sunday Telegraph 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. The Secret Life of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, a Level 3 Reader, is A2 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing first conditional, past continuous and present perfect simple for general experience. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. Adrian Mole is a 13-year-old boy. Adrian writes a diary about his school, his family and, of course, love. "There's a new girl in our class . . . I think I might love her. I am 13 3/4 years old, so I'm old enough for love!" Visit the Penguin Readers website Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

'One of the greatest comic creations. I can't remember a more relentlessly funny book' Daily Mirror 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY The fifth book in his hilarious diaries, where Adrian faces divorce, fatherhood and (short-lived) television stardom . . . __________ Adrian Mole is thirty, single and a father. His cooking at a top London restaurant has been equally mocked ('the sausage on my plate could have been a turd') and celebrated (will he be the nation's first celebrity offal chef?). And the love of his life, Pandora Braithwaite, is too busy as the newly elected MP for Ashby-de-la-Zouch to notice him. Frustrated, disappointed and undersexed, Adrian despairs until a letter from his past changes everything . . . __________ 'With the Mole books, Townsend has an unrivalled claim to be this country's foremost practising comic novelist' Mail on Sunday 'Adrian Mole really is a brilliant comic creation. Every sentence is witty and well thought out, and the whole has reverberations beyond itself' The Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran 'Three cheers for Mole's chaotic, non-achieving, dysfunctional family. We need him' Evening Standard

NOW A MAJOR TV ADAPTATION STARRING DAVID WALLIAMS & SAMANTHA BOND The Queen and I is a hilarious satire on modern Britain and an exploration of what it really means to be human, by the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series. ____________ The Royals, they're just like us . . . THE MONARCHY HAS BEEN DISMANTLED When a Republican party wins the General Election, their first act in power is to strip the royal family of their assets and titles and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands. Exchanging Buckingham Palace for a two-bedroomed semi in Hell Close (as the locals dub it), caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed. But is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else? ____________ 'No other author could imagine this so graphically, demolish the institution so wittily and yet leave the family with its human dignity intact' The Times 'Absorbing, entertaining . . . the funniest thing in print since Adrian Mole' Daily Telegraph 'Kept me rolling about until the last page' Daily Mail

The sensational final instalment in comic legend Sue Townsend's hilarious and iconic Adrian Mole series 'Effortlessly hilarious. Brilliant satire and tragedy' Times 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY Read as Adrian continues to struggle with his love life, endures a painfully awkward school play and contemplates the unsettling prospect of applying genital poultice . . . __________ Sunday 1st July NO SMOKING DAY. A momentous day! Smoking in a public place or place of work is forbidden in England. Though if you are a prisoner, an MP or a member of the Royal Family you are exempt. Adrian Mole is thirty-nine and a quarter. He lives in the country in a semi-detached converted pigsty with his wife Daisy and their daughter. His parents George and Pauline live in the adjoining pigsty. But all is not well. The secondhand bookshop in which Adrian works is threatened with closure. The spark has fizzled out of his marriage. His mother is threatening to write her autobiography (A Girl Called Shit). And Adrian's nightly trips to the lavatory have become alarmingly frequent . . . This laugh-out-loud final chapter in Adrian's story will have you hooked from the first page as you discover what he gets up to next. __________ 'A tour de force by a comic genius and if it isn't the best book published this year, I'll eat my bookshelf' Daily Mail, Books of the Year 'Hilarious. Comic gold' Sunday Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

When a Republican party wins the General Election, they strip the royal family of everything and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands. Exchanging caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed. Is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else?

In the not-too-distant future, a radical government has come to power in Great Britain and the Royal family has been moved to a housing estate in Leicester. For the first time, the Royals have to live as ordinary people and they find the experience baffling and frightening, but ultimately enriching. A satire on the failings of the welfare state, the pretensions, expectations and personal foibles of the Royal Family - this warm-hearted and affectionate comedy concerning the Royals' attempts to come to terms with their new situation with moments of gentle irony alternating with pure farce - are just some of the facets of this many-layered and entertaining fantasy.

'An achingly funny anti-hero' Daily Mail 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY In the SIXTH book in Sue Townsend's hilarious and iconic series, Adrian, Leicester's most unlikely ex-con, faces the nit-infested reality of being a single parent . . . __________ Monday January 3, 2000 So how do I greet the New Millennium? In despair. I'm a single parent, I live with my mother . . . I have a bald spot the size of a jaffa cake on the back of my head . . . I can't go on like this, drifting into early middle-age. I need a Life Plan . . . The 'same age as Jesus when he died', Adrian Mole has become a martyr: a single-father bringing up two young boys in an uncaring world. With the ever-unattainable Pandora pursuing her ambition to become Labour's first female PM; his over-achieving half-brother Brett sponging off him; and literary success elusive, Adrian tries to make ends meet and find a purpose. But little does he realise that his own modest life is about to come to the attention of those charged with policing The War Against Terror . . . __________ 'One of the great comic creations of our time. Almost every page of his diaries bring a smile to the face' Scotsman 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

My mother's gone right off me since Rosie was born. She was never a particularly attentive mother - I always had to clean my own shoes. But just lately I have been feeling emotionally deprived. If I turn out to be mentally deranged in adult life, it will all be my mother's fault.

Adrian Mole continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life in this second volume of his secret diary.

'Hilarious and totally Townsend. There were parts where I laughed until I cried' Daily Mail What happens when a duvet day turns into a duvet year? Sue Townsend, the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series, returns with The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. The day her twins leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Her husband Brian, an astronomer having an unsatisfactory affair, is upset. Who will cook his dinner? Eva, he complains, is attention seeking. But word of Eva's defiance spreads. Legions of fans, believing she is protesting, gather in the street. While Alexander the white van man brings tea, toast and sympathy. And from this odd but comforting place Eva begins to see both herself and the world very, very differently. . . Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades. 'Laugh-out-loud . . . a teeming world of characters whose foibles and misunderstandings provide glorious amusement. Something deeper and darker than comedy' Sunday Times 'She fills the pages with turmoil, anger, passion, love and big helpings of wit. It's full of colour and glows with life' Independent 'Touching and hilarious. Bursting with witty social commentary as well as humour' Women's Weekly 'A funny, poignant look at modern family life' Daily Express

What happens when a duvet day turns into a duvet year? Sue Townsend, the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series, returns with The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. The day her twins leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Her husband Brian, an astronomer having an unsatisfactory affair, is upset. Who will cook his dinner? Eva, he complains, is attention seeking. But word of Eva's defiance spreads. Legions of fans, believing she is protesting, gather in the street. While Alexander the white van man brings tea, toast and sympathy. And from this odd but comforting place Eva begins to see both herself and the world very, very differently. . . Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades, The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year is her hilarious new novel. 'Laugh-out-loud . . . a teeming world of characters whose foibles and misunderstandings provide glorious amusement. Something deeper and darker than comedy' Sunday Times 'She fills the pages with turmoil, anger, passion, love and big helpings of wit. It's full of colour and glows with life' Independent 'Hilarious and totally Townsend. There were parts where I laughed until I cried' Daily Mail 'Touching and hilarious. Bursting with witty social commentary as well as humour' Women's Weekly 'A funny, poignant look at modern family life' Daily Express

'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY FEATURED IN 'THE 100 BOOKS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' BBC ARTS The FIRST TWO BOOKS in the hilarious and iconic Adrian Mole series from comic legend Sue Townsend. ________ Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home. Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Telling us candidly about his parents' marital troubles, The Dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual', his love for the divine Pandora and his horror at learning of his mother's pregnancy, Adrian's painfully honest diary is a hilarious and heartfelt chronicle of misspent adolescence. _________ 'I've never experienced a greater sense of recognition than when reading The Secret Diary' David Nicholls 'Every sentence is witty and well thought out, and the whole has reverberations beyond itself' The Times 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see in it' Sunday Telegraph 'One of the great comic creations' Daily Mirror THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE IS NOW A MAJOR MUSICAL Features the complete texts of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ is the first book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series, reissued in Penguin's ORIGINALS series of iconic teen fiction.

Friday January 2nd

I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home.

Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual', Adrian's painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared.

Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades.

'A classic. The Adrian Mole diaries are thoroughly subversive. A true hero for our time' Richard Ingrams 'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY The FOURTH book in Adrian Mole's diaries, where we catch up with a hapless Adrian and his desperate attempts to win back the love of his life. __________ Thursday January 3rd I have the most terrible problems with my sex life. It all boils down to the fact that I have no sex life. At least not with another person. Finally given the heave-ho by Pandora, Adrian Mole finds himself in the unenviable situation of living with the love-of-his-life as she goes about shacking up with other men. Worse, as he slides down the employment ladder, from deskbound civil servant in Oxford to part-time washer-upper in Soho, he finds that critical reception for his epic novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, is not quite as he might have hoped. But Adrian is about to discover that extraordinary and wonderful things may blossom even in the wilderness . . . __________ 'A very, very funny book' Sunday Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

""The sight of duty does make one shiver," said Miss Herrick. "The actual doing of it would kill one, I think."" Ever anxious to keep up appearances, self-avowed intellectual and scholar Nicholas Herrick knows that to involve himself in the running of his own school would be a condescension too far. Assembling around himself a cast of fittingly fawning friends and aides, he sets about unveiling his final masterpiece. Described in contemporary reviews as "a work of genius," "Pastors and Masters "inaugurated the writing career of an author gifted with a rare skill for characterization and for wry portrayals of domestic scenes.

Adrian Mole faces the same agoniesthat life sets before most adolescents: trouble s with girls, school, parents, and an uncaring world. The difference, though, between young Master Mole andhis peers is that this British lad keeps adiary--an earnest chronicle of longingand disaster that has charmed morethan five million readers since its two-volumeinitial publication. From teenagedAdrian's anguished adoration of a lovely, mercurial schoolmate to hisview of his parents' constantly creaking relationship to hisheartfelt but hilarious attemptsat cathartic verse, here is anoutrageous triumph of deadpan--anddeadly accurate--satire. ABBA, PrincessDi's wedding, street punks, Monty Python, the Falklands campaign . . . all the culturalpageantry of a keenly observed eramarches past the unique perspective ofSue Townsend's brilliant comic creation: A . Mole, the unforgettable lad whoseself-absorption only gets funnier as hislife becomes more desperate.

'It's really, really, really funny' David Walliams Mole Press - a brand new imprint of Penguin Books - is proud to announce the first publication of The Collected Poems of Adrian Mole to mark the author's 50TH birthday. --------------------------- 'Edgy politics, tortured eroticism, misunderstood intellect, changing Britain - a whiff of the sublime. Mole's contribution is significant' Daily Telegraph Featuring poems scattered over nearly thirty years of writing and salvaged from the diaries 'authored' by one Sue Townsend, this slim volume features more than thirty pieces of Adrian's unique art. From his timeless first documented poem - The Tap - via classic odes to his muse, first and only true love Pandora (I adore ya), we follow Adrian's life in verse form. We not only witness his burgeoning political anger in works like Mrs Thatcher (Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher, do you weep?) but also see in later poems his merciless examination of the hollow shell of masculinity as well as documenting his declining libido in tragic pieces like To My Organ. For the first time in a single volume, these are the collected poems of misunderstood intellectual and tortured poet Adrian Mole. 'I ruthlessly exploited Adrian. But he can't afford to sue me' Sue Townsend 'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday Times 'One of the great comic creations' Daily Mirror 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran