Sue Townsend was, and remains, Britain's favourite comic novelist. 
 
For over thirty years, after the publication of her instant and iconic bestseller The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ in 1982, she made us weep with laughter and pricked the nation's conscience. Seven further volumes of Adrian's diaries followed, and all were highly acclaimed bestsellers. 
 
She also published five other hugely popular novels - including The Queen and I and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year - as well as writing numerous well-received plays. Remarkably, Sue did not learn to read until she was eight and left school with no qualifications. As beloved by critics as she was by readers the length and breadth of the nation, she chronicled the lives of ordinary people in Britain through times of upheaval and great social change. 
 
She lived in Leicester all her Life, dying in the city that she loved in 2014.

Sue Townsend

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

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 
 
'Reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole when I was 14 felt quite like an awakening' GREG DAVIES, Sunday 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

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

The 40th Anniversary Edition with an introduction from Caitlin Moran

Adrian Mole Book 1

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

Penguin Shop: 15% off with code PENGUINXMAS2025

White Nights

Little Black Classics Box Set

Penguin Modern Box Set

Frankenstein

Reading lists

7 extremely funny books written by women

Interviews

The Penguin Q&A: Nina Stibbe

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

Books that defined the 1990s

Books that feel like a warm hug

An illustration of a woman walking a tightrope, with a baby to the left of her and a computer to the right

Features

Dazzling, raucous, rarely alone: a history of single mums in books

An illustration of a Dalmatian dog standing in front of a bookcase full of books.

Showing results for: ‘Sue Townsend’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter