Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis

Auntie Mame - An Irreverent Escapade (First published 1955) 
 
Inspired by his own eccentric aunt, Patrick Dennis's Auntie Mame is a madcap comedy, published with an afterword by Matteo Codignola in Penguin Modern Classics.

Auntie Mame and I learned to love one another in as brief and painless a period as possible. That her amazing personality would attract me, just as it had seduced thousands of others, was a foregone conclusion. Her helter-skelter charm was, after all, notorious ...

When shy young heir Patrick is orphaned at the tender age of ten, the only family he has is his wealthy and eccentric aunt, a fabulous New York socialite named Mame. While prone to dramatic costumes, flights of fancy and expensive whims - not least her lives as a muse and a Southern belle - Auntie Mame will raise Patrick the only way she knows how: with madcap humour, mishaps, unforgettable friends and lots and lots of love. Turned into a play, a musical, and adapted into a 1974 film directed by Gene Saks and starring Lucille Ball, Auntie Mame is the most magnificent and hilarious work of love, style, wit and the life of a very modern Aunt.
 
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'Like Tennessee Williams, Patrick Dennis caught the boldness, vitality, and iridescent theatricality of modern American personality. In Mame's mercurial metamorphoses we see American optimism and self-invention writ large.' - Camille Paglia
 
'Extravaganet follies and delirious escapades.' - New York Times
 
'As hilarious as a Marx brothers comedy. As elegant as a Schiaparelli eau de toilette. As exhilarating as laughing gas.' - Vanity Fair
 
'[Dennis] writes beautifully ... absolutely delightful ... camp as all boots but still funny!' - Ian Hislop
 
'One of the funniest books I've ever read ... a comedy classic.' - Kate Saunders, Radio 4's A Good Read