He determines to be truthful on Christmas Day, with disastrous results. In Still William he proposes on behalf of his brother, and later on behalf of his sister. If anything, most of his misfortune comes from an irrepressible desire to help. Although everything almost always goes lamentably wrong, and William ends up being hounded by his relatives and neighborus, there isn’t a malicious bone in his body. Richmal Crompton wrote over thirty William books between 19, this being the fifth – each is a collection of stories about the well-intentioned mishaps of William Brown, who is eternally eleven. This isn’t a fully-fledged review or anything, it’s just a little overflow of joyfulness at revisiting William – in this case, Still William. Here’s one of the passing characters, for instance: ‘He was extraordinarily conceited and not overburdened by any superfluity of intellect.’ Think how PG Wodehouse might have written about an eleven year old boy, if PGW tempered his exaggeration a little and developed an intimate knowledge with the minutiae of village life. ( Photo credit, btw.) If you’ve never read one of the books, you’re in for a treat. …and everytime I realise I needn’t have worried. Everytime I revisit Richmal Crompton’s William series, I have a nudging fear that they won’t be as good as I remembered, that what seemed screamingly funny to me when I was eight will have palled…
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