He began as a wild young man in evening clothes drinking intoxicants and playing cards, he ended as a wild old man in rags still drinking intoxicants and playing cards. Lastly came the pathetic story of a drunkard's downward path.

In the first story of the first book, William Goes To The Pictures, while William is sincerely moved by a film he sees, the narrator simultaneously offers her own, more cynical, perspective:

Particularly in the early stories it isn't William's voice and world view that stand out, so much as that of the wry, detached narrator. These aren't so much stories about children, as they are about the adult world, as experienced by an 11-year-old boy. Appearing originally in periodicals such as Home Magazine, Crompton was writing exclusively for a grown-up audience, and it shows. In discussion of the books, people often comment on how unusually challenging the vocabulary is for children's stories - neglecting to draw the obvious conclusion that they weren't intended for children, but rather as comic stories for adults. And Richmal, I've been struck by how laugh-out-loud funny they are, and how sophisticated the comic craft. Revisiting the stories while researching the Radio 4 documentary Just William. William is now regarded as an iconic children's character perhaps more than Richmal Crompton as a great comic writer.īut unquestionably this is what she was. In that time, William has burst the bounds of the stories that gave him life, appearing on radio, television, and film, in the process becoming a cultural institution who overshadows his creator.

It's 100 years since Richmal Crompton published her first collection of short stories about an unruly, scruffy 11-year-old boy called William Brown.

Just william books