A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel

Picaresque novel

The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society...

 written by John Kennedy Toole

John Kennedy Toole

John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, best-known for his posthumously published novel A Confederacy of Dunces. He also wrote The Neon Bible. Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole's novels were rejected...

, published by LSU Press

Louisiana State University Press

The Louisiana State University Press is a nonprofit book publisher and an academic unit of Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, the press publishes scholarly, general interest, and regional books as part of the university’s mission to disseminate knowledge and culture...

 in 1980

1980 in literature

The year 1980 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman to be elected to the Académie française....

, 11 years after the author's suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy

Walker Percy

Walker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...

 (who also contributed a revealing foreword) and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic

Cult following

A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...

, and later a mainstream success. Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...

 in 1981. It is now considered a canonical work of modern Southern literature

Southern literature

Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...

.

The title derives from the epigraph

Epigraph (literature)

In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional...

 by Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

: "When a true genius

Genius

Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....

 appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunce

Dunce

A dunce is a person incapable of learning.The word is derived from the name of the great Scholastic theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, also referred to as Doctor Subtillis, or "Subtle Doctor", whose works on logic, theology and philosophy were accepted textbooks in the universities from...

s are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting is the title of a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift. It also has appeared under the title Thoughts on Various Subjects...

)

The story is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s.