Richmal Crompton created William Brown just over seventy years ago as a pot-boiler, but his instant and enduring success kept her writing about him for five decades. As well as dreaming up a wide range of extraordinary adventures for her scruffy, opinionated and exuberant anti-hero, she gathered around him a vivid world of events, relationships and places, and most of all, of engaging, obnoxious or eccentric characters.
The William stories occupy thirty-eight books; this Companion provides an A to Z of who’s who and what’s what in the saga, placing many apparently disparate incidents in context, and providing atmospheric and amusing studies of hundreds of characters. Lesser lights as well as luminaries are featured; plots and incidents form many of the stories are vividly described; and the Companion will hep William enthusiasts to trace elusive episodes, incidents, protagonists or quotations.
Did William, for example, really pay Joan the compliment of saying that he liked her better than any insect? And just when, in his efforts to be helpful, did he tell people that his glamorous sister Ethel suffered from epilepsy, consumption and alcoholism? Did he actually kill a cat—or several cats? Could he have had a crush on a teacher? Or an ageing pantomime star? Did his would-be-sophisticate student brother Robert ever take his finals? And did the feud between the Outlaws and the Hubert Laneites ever end?
Wonderfully enjoyable in is own right, The William Companion will guide readers old and new through the highways and byways of Richmal Crompton’s splendidly witty stories. It is illustrated with the drawings of Thomas Henry, who portrayed William so vividly in all his vicissitudes.
