Publisher's Synopsis
Something Wholesale is his hilarious and splendidly macabre account of the confusion and disorder that was his life apprenticed to the family firm of Lane and Newby. It is also an affectionate portrait of his father, a delightful eccentric who spent most of his time averting disasters or actively participating in them, his heart more in his abiding passion, sculling, than in the preservation of the tottering edifice that was his business.
Connoisseurs will immediately recognize the self-deprecating humour, the sharp eye for the absurd that is vintage Newby.
'It would strain the imagination to picture this stalwart young adventurer selling women's clothes. We are relieved of the difficulty by his own deliciously funny description . . . I read it at once and liked it awfully' Evelyn Waugh
