He paused at the door of number 23, delaying his knock. He was near to panic. Then, without being aware of it, he had knocked. There was the sound of brisk footsteps. A face peered out for a moment through the frosted glass, and then the door was opened. Mrs Wills stood before him.
“You’ll be Mr Smith.” she said.
About the Author
David Nobbs was born in Orpington and educated at Marlborough, Cambridge and in the Royal Corps of Signals. His first job was as a reporter on the Sheffield Star, and his first break as a comedy writer came on the iconic satire show That Was The Week, That Was, hosted by David Frost. Later he wrote for The Frost Report and The Two Ronnies and provided material for many top comedians including Les Dawson, Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd and Dick Emery. David is best known for his two TV hit series A Bit of a Do and for The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, now revived in a contemporary version, starring Martin Clunes. He lives in North Yorkshire with his second wife, Susan. He has four stepchildren, eight grand-stepchildren and one great-grand-stepchild.
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Praise for David Nobbs’s novels:
‘Painfully hilarious, wonderfully observed and slight sour at the same time’
Guardian
‘Thank goodness for David Nobbs! He carries on the comic tradition of P G Wodehouse with this marvellous new book; a sweet and touching love story written with his trademark sly and subversive humour. A perfect antidote to these dark times’
JOANNE HARRIS
‘Probably our finest post-war comic novelist’
JONATHAN COE
‘A marvellously comic novel’
Sunday Times
‘One of the most noisily funny books I have ever read’
MICHAEL PALIN
‘Very funny sketches of provincial newspaper life’
‘The most satisfying novel I have read in years’
Express
Other Books by David Nobbs
Obstacles to Young Love
A Piece of the Sky is Missing
Ostrich Country
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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First published in Great Britain by Methuen & Co Ltd 1965
THE ITINERANT LODGER. Copyright © David Nobbs 1965. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
David Nobbs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EPub Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 978-0-00-742789-5
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