CATCHER IN THE WRY

Can “Adrian Mole,” Britain’s biggest multimedia phenomenon among the young, become popular in America?

Grove Press is betting yes with a 25,000-copy print run of “The Diaries of Adrian Mole” ($17.50), due out in May. The purported observations of a precocious British lad--actually penned by Sue Townsend--have sold 4 million-plus copies in England.

Adrian, who “began” his diary at 13 3/4, offers such insights as “I have just realized that I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac.”

Young people are crazy for it. There’s been a six-part BBC miniseries, with a sequel planned around book two, “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.” A musical version has been running in London’s West End for more than a year.

A 1984 American version from Avon Books was sold unsuccessfully as a children’s book. Grove plans broader marketing.

“Like ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ ” opined Grove senior editor Fred Jordan, “ ‘Adrian Mole’ is an anti-hypocrisy book that makes you laugh about the foibles of the adult world and the semi-naivete of the young mind.”

Townsend has written an introduction for the Grove edition that explains such British-isms as Malcolm Muggeridge--”an old intellectual on TV, a bit like Gore Vidal only more wrinkled.”