zoom_in Click to enlarge

Wilt

▲ ▼

description Wilt Overview

Wilt is a 1976 comic novel by English writer Tom Sharpe. Henry Wilt is a lecturer at a further-education college whose frustration with his job, marriage, and social circumstances leads him into an increasingly implausible series of events involving a life-sized inflatable doll and a police investigation. The book is aimed at readers who enjoy broad social satire focused on bureaucracy, class, education, and domestic life.

help Wilt FAQ

What is the plot of Tom Sharpe's Wilt?

Henry Wilt, a demoralized lecturer at a further-education college, practices ranting at a life-sized inflatable doll, and when its punctured remains are discovered, he becomes the target of a police investigation that spirals into searches for multiple bodies. The 1976 novel is a farce about a mediocre man buried in circumstantial disaster.

What order should I read the Wilt series in?

Start with Wilt (1976), then The Wilt Alternative (1979), Wilt on High (1984), Wilt In Nowhere (2004), and finally The Wilt Inheritance (2010). Sharpe returned to Henry Wilt across more than three decades.

Was there a movie adaptation of Wilt?

Yes, a 1989 film adaptation starred Griff Rhys Jones as Henry Wilt, with Mel Smith also in the cast. It brought Sharpe's inflatable-doll farce to the screen with the era's familiar British comedy faces.

Did Tom Sharpe base Henry Wilt on his own teaching career?

Sharpe did lecture at a further-education college in Cambridge in the 1960s, an experience widely credited with informing Wilt's setting and its contempt for college bureaucracy. The satire of institutional idiocy rings true because he lived a version of it.

swap_horiz

Looking for Wilt alternatives? Compare top competitors ranked & scored

arrow_forward