Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary, published in 1996, is written in the form of a personal diary. Helen Fielding's novel covers a year in the life of its narrator, Bridget Jones, a single working woman in her thirties living in London and working in publishing. She records her career, her self-image, her vices, her family and friends, and her romantic relationships, along with the calories, cigarettes, alcohol units and resolutions that are counted and accounted for as the year goes on.

The diary is largely taken up with Bridget's love life. She becomes involved with her charming and handsome boss, Daniel Cleaver, who eventually cheats on her with a younger and more conventionally attractive woman, and she also keeps running into the stuffy human-rights barrister Mark Darcy, whom she initially dislikes. Around that run her mother's attempts to arrange her life, and the round of parties, lunches and family occasions that the diary format turns into comic material.

The novel was followed by a sequel, The Edge of Reason, published in 1999, and by two further books, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy in 2013 and Bridget Jones's Baby in 2016. The original novel was adapted into a film released in 2001.