Billy Liar
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
A landmark of British comic fiction, Billy Liar chronicles the misadventures of Billy Fisher, a young undertaker's clerk in a northern English town who escapes the mundane realities of his life through elaborate fantasies and compulsive lies. Keith Waterhouse crafts a sharply observed portrait of a dreamer trapped between the suffocating conformity of post-war provincial England and his own grandiose imagination — where he reigns as ruler of a fictional country called Ambrosia. The novel balances laugh-out-loud comedy with a genuine undercurrent of pathos, capturing the restless yearning of youth with razor-sharp wit. First published in 1959, it became a defining text of the British New Wave, inspiring a celebrated stage adaptation, a 1963 film starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, and a long-running television series. Waterhouse's voice is irreverent and pitch-perfect, presenting a character who is simultaneously infuriating and deeply sympathetic.
Author: Keith Waterhouse
Format: Paperback
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
A landmark of British comic fiction, Billy Liar chronicles the misadventures of Billy Fisher, a young undertaker's clerk in a northern English town who escapes the mundane realities of his life through elaborate fantasies and compulsive lies. Keith Waterhouse crafts a sharply observed portrait of a dreamer trapped between the suffocating conformity of post-war provincial England and his own grandiose imagination — where he reigns as ruler of a fictional country called Ambrosia. The novel balances laugh-out-loud comedy with a genuine undercurrent of pathos, capturing the restless yearning of youth with razor-sharp wit. First published in 1959, it became a defining text of the British New Wave, inspiring a celebrated stage adaptation, a 1963 film starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, and a long-running television series. Waterhouse's voice is irreverent and pitch-perfect, presenting a character who is simultaneously infuriating and deeply sympathetic.