The Gropes

A major craftsman in the art of farce…vengeful, chaotic, Swiftian in his tastes, cartoonish in his extremes, and above all wild and amusing * Observer *
Britain’s leading practitioner of black humour * Punch *
Tom Sharpe serves up the loudest laughs in literary comedy. He is the great post-Waugh humorist, the Wodehouse who dares plunge into the bottomless vulgarity and hysteria of our times, and a rattling good companion on a train journey * Mail on Sunday *
The funniest novelist writing today * The Times *
This is a romp with many of the staples of Sharpe’s bestselling comedy – Harry Ritchie * Daily Mail *
a vicious social satire, heavily seasoned with outrageous farce and ebullient comedy. Yes, it’s always a pleasure to welcome a new novel by one of the world’s funniest writers. * Times *
Part of the pleasure of reading Tom Sharpe lies in his cheerful penchant for anachronism and whimsy. * Guardian *
[a] rollicking plot * Sunday Times *
The funniest novel writing today * The Times *

Tom Sharpe was born in 1928 and educated at Lancing College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He did his national service in the Marines before moving to South Africa in 1951, where he did social work before teaching in Natal. He had a photographic studio in Pietermaritzburg from 1957 until 1961, and from 1963 to 1972 he was a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. He is the author of sixteen bestselling novels, including Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape, which were serialised on television, and Wilt, which was made into a film. In 1986 he was awarded the XXIII me Grand Prix de l’Humour Noir Xavier Forneret, and in 2010 he was awarded the inaugural BBK La Risa de Bilbao Prize. Tom Sharpe died in June 2013 at his home in northern Spain.

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