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A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces
Jan 11, 2026 10:12 PM

Author:John Kennedy Toole

A Confederacy of Dunces

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'My favourite book of all time... it stays with you long after you have read it - for your whole life, in fact' Billy Connolly

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. Ignatius ignores them, heaving 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. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with...

This stunning clothbound edition of John Kennedy Toole's savagely funny, satirical masterpiece is designed by the acclaimed Coralie-Bickford Smith.

'A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities ... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue'

The New York Times

Reviews

My favourite book of all time. I've read it so many times and I still go back to it today.

—— Billy Connolly

In Indignation, his power and intensity seem undiminished

—— New York Times

He is a writer of quite extraordinary skill and courage

—— London Review of Books

I relished Indignation. Roth writes with his trademark drive and fluency, on the knife blade between rage and laughter

—— Guardian

Roth reasserts his fictional mastery with a fine taut narrative about the frustrations of youth...every part of it is dovetailed into a story of compelling economy...a mid-20th-century tale of nemesis with all the intellectual and imaginative force of a great novelist writing at the height of his powers

—— Sunday Times

A gratifying novel... Indignation is, unquestionably, seriously "good" Roth

—— The Times

Roth's novels abound in comic moments, and so does Indignation...His powerful new novel seethes with outrage...a deft, gripping, and deeply moving narrative

—— New York Review of Books

Indignation ought to be required reading for presidential candidates

—— Evening Standard

Indignation is, among its many pleasures, a controlled expression of wrath

—— Daily Telegraph

If I had to choose one word to sum up Indignation I'd go for classy. If were allowed two: very classy

—— Sunday Telegraph

Consummately elegant

—— Sunday Times

He writes perceptively about the shift from self-absorbed teenager to adult.

—— The Times

If all works of fiction were as thoughtful, as subtle, as well constructed and as funny as Metroland there would be no more talk of the death of the novel

—— New Statesman

It's one of the best accounts of clever English schoolboyhood I've read

—— Times Educational Supplement

Irony and imagery are deployed with a finesse even Flaubert wouldn't wince at...consummately elegant

—— Sunday Times
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