A Confederacy of Dunces
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  • Published: 14 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241284667
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

A Confederacy of Dunces

‘Probably my favourite book of all time’ Billy Connolly

Formats & editions
Paperback
13 May 2011
Paperback
22 Jun 2000
Hardback
14 Nov 2016
EBook
13 Jun 2019
Audiobook
28 Jul 2022
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A stunning clothbound edition of John Kennedy Toole's savagely funny, satirical masterpiece

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 as well. Ignatius ignores them as he heaves 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...
  • Published: 14 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241284667
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

About the author

John Kennedy Toole


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. His long-suppressed novel The Neon Bible, written when he was only sixteen, was eventually published as well.

A Confederacy of Dunces won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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