Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Cosmo Smallpiece guide to male liberation | 1979 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 2 | The Les Dawson Joke Book | 1979 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 3 | The Amy Pluckett Letters | 1982 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 4 | The Malady Lingers on and Other Great Groaners | 1982 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 5 | Les Dawson’s Lancashire | 1983 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 6 | A Clown Too Many | 1985 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 7 | Les Dawson Gives Up | 1989 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 8 | No Tears for the Clown | 1992 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 9 | Listen to Les | 1993 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 10 | Listen To Les 2 | 1995 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 11 | Les Dawson’s Secret Notebooks | 2007 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 12 | Les Dawson: Masters of Comedy | 2008 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 13 | The Dawson Slant | 2009 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 14 | Les Dawson’s Joke Book | 2012 | Les Dawson | Buy |
| 15 | Laugh With Les | 2013 | Les Dawson | Buy |
Les Dawson wrote non-fiction throughout his career, and the 15 titles collected here span everything from joke books to regional portraits to full autobiography. He began with comic collections like The Les Dawson Joke Book and The Amy Pluckett Letters in the early 1980s, and wrote about his home region in Les Dawson’s Lancashire (1983).
No Tears for the Clown, published the year he died, is the emotional centrepiece of the collection. It covers his years struggling in clubs before his TV break and his complicated relationship with fame. The book has a melancholy undercurrent that contrasts with the ebullient public persona he maintained throughout his career.
Several posthumous titles appeared in the 2000s, including Les Dawson’s Secret Notebooks (2007) and The Dawson Slant (2009), drawing on material he left behind. These later publications give fans a sense of how his mind worked off-stage and off-camera.