Forgotten Authors No 54 / Richmal Crompton

Richmal Crompton

Forgotten Authors 

No 54

Richmal Crompton

Christopher Fowler
Sunday 23 May 2010 00:00

Writers of children's books tread a fine line. They need their lead characters to be interesting and a little wayward, but if they are too wild, the wrath of parents and librarians will be incurred; too soft, and their target audience will lose interest.

Certain schoolboy heroes from the past have fallen from fashion, the victims of changing attitudes; the once hugely popular Billy Bunter books have been expunged from history, presumably for being calorifically challenged (I'd like to have covered Frank Richards' series, but couldn't find any copies). Happily, several of Crompton's Just William books are available in reprint, though they are now a minority taste that probably appeals to older fans with a sense of nostalgia.

Most readers thought Richmal Crompton Lamburn was a man. So shy was she that she did not disabuse them of the notion, even as her anarchic, disruptive schoolboy, shown with his cap askew and tie undone, graced nearly 40 volumes of exploits. Crompton wrote for adults too, but her lasting claim to fame is this William Brown, whose adventures were populated with a gang of rebels called the Outlaws, including Ginger, Henry, Douglas and the awful, frilly, lisping Violet Elizabeth (catchphrase; "'I'm going to thcream and thcream until I'm thick!"), who was appropriately played in a TV adaptation by Bonnie Langford.

Crompton was born in Lancashire in 1890. The first William story appeared in Home magazine in 1919, and she continued writing them throughout her life, the last being published in 1970 after her death; there is something touching about a writer who never married producing books beloved by children.

With a certain amount of boring inevitability, Crompton's books were later attacked by critics for being irrelevant and middle-class, as if being able to write well was itself a liability. One reader points out that nowadays the books aren't a very easy read for preteens because they are peppered with words such as "epicurean", "apoplectic" and "discoursing", to which I say, "Look it up."

And of course, William's rebelliousness – performing a conjuring trick with an egg that goes wrong, trying to arrange a marriage for his sister or planning to sell Ginger's brothers as slaves to raise money – are hopelessly mild compared with the minefield of dangers facing modern parents. But perhaps an updated version, "William and the Crack Dealers", featuring a schoolboy wielding a sharpened screwdriver instead of a catapult, might rob the books of their childhood charms.

INDEPENDENT

My hero / Richmal Crompton by Louise Rennison

 

Richmal Crompton, 1946

My hero: 

Richmal Crompton

 by Louise Rennison

Saturday 27 November 2010

I

love Just William. Not because he is a reminder of my childhood – I only read about him three years ago. I love him as a new discovery. It is, of course, a love tinged with enormous relief that I don't actually know him – that he has not, say, rifled through my drawers to make my best underwear into hats for his mad plays. Which, incidentally, always star him.

Francesca Simon / Top 10 Antiheroes



Francesca Simon's top 10 antiheroes

From Just William to Scarlett O'Hara, Tom Ripley to Molesworth, the author of the Horrid Henry books picks out her favourite suspects in a line-up of classic bad behaviour

Francesca Simon

The Guardian

Wednesday 21 Octubre 2009

Bad examples ... Molesworth, Scarlett O'Hara, Just William and Tom Ripley. Photographs: Corbis/PR/AllStar

Francesca Simon was born in St Louis, Missouri, grew up in California, and attended both Yale and Oxford universities, where she specialised in Medieval Studies. Having worked as a freelance journalist, after her son Joshua was born in 1989 she started writing children's books full-time.

              Among the 50-plus books that have followed are the immensely popular Horrid Henry series, which has now sold more than 12m copies in 24 countries. The 17th book in the series, Horrid Henry Wakes the Dead, was published on October 1.

             "I have always loved books about rebels and non-conformists, people who swagger through life with a fierce edge and a stubborn refusal to behave themselves. No one in these books would ever win Miss Congeniality or Mr Nice Guy. Their faults definitely exceed their virtues.
              "I'm also partial to selfish, and self-obsessed characters (no surprises there), so I've picked some favourite anti-heroes and heroines. Let's face it, we all need to let our inner imp out sometimes."

 

1. The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

I read book one of the Bartimaeus trilogy lying on a sofa, and did not get up until I'd finished. Jonathan Stroud has had a brilliant idea, that Britain is secretly run by a cabal of magicians who get power by summoning and enslaving "djinnies". These djinns hate their masters, and of course will do anything to break free. Our young anti-hero, Nathaniel, summons the sarcastic, powerful Bartimaeus, whom he orders to steal the Amulet from Nathaniel's nemesis. The witty, sarcastic Bartimaeus is a wonderful creation, and I loved the tense relationship he has with the arrogant, immature and somewhat amoral Nathaniel.

 

2. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

One of my all time favourite heroines, the outrageous Pippi does exactly as she pleases, because she's rich, strong enough to lift a horse, parent-free, and completely indifferent to what anyone else thinks about her. I loved the idea of a girl who tricked grown-ups and was a brilliant liar – or should I say storyteller?

 

3. Just William by Richmal Crompton

I never read Just William as a child and had to wait until I'd written several Horrid Henrys before I dared, as I was quite nervous that the two characters would be very similar. I was relieved to discover that William is actually much nicer than Henry, though they share a similar yearning for freedom and a love of plotting. I adore William's laziness, his disobedience, his refusal to be civilised. It's no accident his gang is called the Outlaws.

 

4. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Artemis is a swashbuckling anti-hero, a teenage criminal mastermind who devotes his ruthless intelligence to amassing loot and fighting fairies. Great fun, and a great example of the anti-hero as protagonist.

 

5. Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans

My friend the writer Eleanor Updale was horrified that I'd never read Molesworth, and insisted I buy the books last year, which I did. Molesworth, "the curse of St Custards" is an irredeemably lazy and sardonic schoolboy, trapped at a boarding prep school, where he battles the gruesome head boy, Grabber, (winner of the mrs joyful prize for raffia work), assorted mad masters, and the soppy Fotherington-Thomas. The books are unbelievably funny, and the illustrations by Ronald Searle have an irresistible gothic creepiness.

 

6. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Calvin is a stroppy, imaginative six-year-old at war with the world, Hobbes is his stuffed tiger who comes to life when no one else is around. Our whole family adores Calvin and cheers him on. The funniest, and most delightful modern comic.

 

7. Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman

These 10 rhymed stories feature disobedient, truculent children who come to horrible ends. My favourite has always been Kaspar, the strong healthy boy who won't eat his soup, until he wastes away and dies on the fifth day. My siblings and I recited this story endlessly.

 

8. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

I discovered this book by accident while on holiday in France and staying with friends of my parents. I remember lying out in the Provence sun quite unable to believe what I was reading, as I'd never encountered an amoral psychopath as a novel's "hero". Utterly gripping and creepy, one of the books that you never forget. I also got sun stroke from lying outside reading for too long, but that's another story.

 

9. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Who could fail to be captivated by Scarlett O'Hara and her single-minded determination to have her own way and do whatever needs to be done, whether it's stealing her sister's fiance, or marrying yet another man just to spite Ashley Wilkes? What's fantastic about Scarlett is her incredible determination and bravery. She's also a rotten mother, two-faced, selfish, and a force of nature. I've read this book many, many times; I don't mean to, but Scarlett grabs me and I get swept away.

 

10. Paradise Lost by John Milton

I was stuck for a 10th choice, until my son Joshua reminded me about Paradise Lost. Milton's tormented and arrogant Satan, the fallen angel, is a great anti-hero, and demonstrates all too vividly the seductive attractiveness of the rebel who refuses to obey, despite the cost. You can feel Milton struggling to resist him.

THE GUARDIAN