‘Probably my favourite book of all time’ Billy Connolly

A Confederacy of Dunces

'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.' 
 
Ignatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much unhinged, too. But is he bothered by this? 
 
No. For this misanthropic crusader against an America fallen into vice and ignorance has a mission: to rescue a naked female philosopher in distress. And he has a pirate costume and hot-dog cart to do it with . . .

ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD 
 
'This is probably my favourite book of all time' Billy Connolly 
 
A pithy, laugh-out-loud story following John Kennedy Toole's larger-than-life Ignatius J. Reilly, floundering his way through 1960s New Orleans, beautifully resigned with cover art by Gary Taxali 
_____________ 
 
 'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.' 
 
 
Ignatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much unhinged, too. But is he bothered by this? 
 
 No. For this misanthropic crusader against an America fallen into vice and ignorance has a mission: to rescue a naked female philosopher in distress. And he has a pirate costume and hot-dog cart to do it with . . . 
_____________ 
 
 'I succumbed, stunned and seduced, page after page, vocal with delight. A masterwork of comedy' New York Times 
 
 'A fine funny novel. This is the kind of book one wants to keep quoting from' Anthony Burgess

I succumbed, stunned and seduced, page after page, vocal with delight. A masterwork of comedy

A fine funny novel. This is the kind of book one wants to keep quoting from

Every reviewer has loved it. For once, everyone is right

John Kennedy Toole was born in New Orleans in 1937. He received a master's degree in English from Columbia University and taught at Hunter College and at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He wrote A Confederacy of Dunces in the early sixties and tried unsuccessfully to get the novel published; depressed, at least in part by his failure to place the book, he committed suicide in 1969. It was only through the tenacity of his mother that her son's book was eventually published and found the audience it deserved.

John Kennedy Toole

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' 
 
'My favourite book of all time... it stays with you long after you have read it - for your whole life, in fact' Billy Connolly 
 
A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with... 
 
This stunning clothbound edition of John Kennedy Toole's savagely funny, satirical masterpiece is designed by the acclaimed Coralie-Bickford Smith. 
 
'A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities ... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue' 
The New York Times

John Kennedy Toole

A Confederacy of Dunces

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