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    Just William
    Just William
    Just William
    Ebook181 pages4 hours

    Just William

    By Richmal Crompton

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    Richmal Crompton Lamburn was born in Bury, Lancashire, on November 15th, 1890. She attended St Elphin's Boarding School, originally based in Warrington, Lancashire and later moved with the school to a new location in Darley Dale, near Matlock, Derbyshire in 1904. To pursue her chosen career as a schoolteacher, she won a scholarship to Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London in Englefield Green, Surrey. In 1914 Richmal graduated with a BA honours degree in Classics (II class). She was also an active member of the Women's Suffrage movement. That same year she returned to St Elphin’s as a Classics mistress and then three years later to Bromley High School in southeast London where she also began her writing in earnest. Health though was an issue and in 1923 after contracting poliomyelitis, she was left without the use of her right leg. She gave up her teaching career and began to write full-time. Her writing was almost immediately very successful and within three years of leaving the teaching profession she had enough funds to build a house in Bromley for herself and her Mother. The source of most of this success was based on the short stories of William, a rather mischievous 11 year old schoolboy and his band of chums who called themselves "The Outlaws". He first appeared in the short story "Rice Mould Pudding", published in 1919. By 1922, the first collection, entitled Just William, was published and was followed by 37 others. Her health was a continuing issue in her forties. This time breast cancer, which required a mastectomy. Richmal believed her real calling was fiction for adults and in her career wrote 41 novels and 9 collections of short stories. These did well for a time but after the end of World War II their Edwardian Class values were at odds with the change in society. William continued to better than her other works and several times Richmal tried to re-engineer the character; Enter – Patricia in 1927 and Jimmy in 1947. William’s sales still trumped both. She never married or had children. Richmal Crompton died at her home in Chislehurst on January 11th, 1969.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateFeb 6, 2015
    ISBN9781785431319
    Author

    Richmal Crompton

    Richmal Crompton was born in Lancashire in 1890. The first story about William Brown appeared in Home magazine in 1919, and the first collection of William stories was published in book form three years later. In all, thirty-eight Just William books were published, the last, William the Lawless, in 1970 after Richmal Crompton’s death.

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    Reviews for Just William

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    • 4/5
      A sort of British Dennis the Menace. More like Meh-nace.
    • 5/5
      I've heard about the Just William stories for years now, but for whatever reason, they haven't penetrated American shores. I was pleased and delighted, then, when a close friend sent me this edition of the original Just William collection for my birthday. Now, I'm more surprised than ever these are so unknown in the USA: William, while resolutely a British boy of the 1920s, clearly has the blood of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and O. Henry's Red Chief in his veins. Because the stories are British, there is no need to see William get more than a trifling comeuppance for his behavior; instead, Richmal Crompton's prose has a wonderfully dry way of both understating and slyly winking at everything William does. As a long-time fan of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, these were right up my alley, and I enjoyed them tremendously.
    • 4/5
      This book about 11-year-old William is good but suffered from the fact that I had recently read Booth Tarkington's "Penrod" (also about an 11-year-old boy). Crompton's stories were just not quite as humorous or as charming. However, perhaps a Brit might feel the reverse to be true. I also found it a bit odd that the final chapter was about finding Jumble when Jumble had played a significant role in the previous chapter and had been present in several of the earlier chapters as well.
    • 3/5
      Re-read - just as good as when I was a kid!
    • 4/5
      "What have I just been saying, William?"William sighed. That was the foolish sort of question that schoolmistresses were always asking. They ought to know themselves what they'd just been saying better than anyone. He never knew. Why were they always asking him? He looked blank. Then:"Was it anythin' about participles?" He remembered something vaguely about participles, but it mightn't have been to-day.Miss Jones groaned."That was ever so long ago, William," she said. "You've not been attending."William cleared his throat with a certain dignity and made no answer.William Brown is the bane of his parents' life, and his sister Ethel's life, and his brother Robert's. His best endeavours go awry and his attempts to talk his way out of trouble involve loud protestations of innocence, or at least of having meant well, but he doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes, managing to break three windows and hit a neighbour's cat in a single morning while practising with his new bow and arrow. He is also a barrack-room lawyer, trying to convince his mother that Tamers and Tigers is an entirely different game from the banned Tamers and Lions, and arguing with convoluted logic that his father had said he could have a party when he hadn't said any such thing.This book was published in 1922, and the contemporary illustrations in the copy I downloaded from Project Gutenberg are great, showing men in suits, women in hats and dresses and scruffy little boys in shorts and caps. As it was written during the silent movie era, when William goes to the pictures he sees a keystone cops-style car chase and some romantic melodramas, which feed his fertile imagination and his romantic heart. My favourite stories in this book are The Show, William Joins the Band of Hope, and William and White Satin. William first meets his dog Jumble in the last story in the book, but Jumble has already appeared in a couple of stories earlier in the book, but I can see why the author put it where she did, as it leaves you with the image of a boy and his dog happily heading off for more adventures.After tea William set off again down the road. The setting sun had turned the sky to gold. There was a soft haze over all the countryside. The clear bird songs filled all the air, and the hedgerows were bursting into summer. And through it all marched William, with a slight swagger, his bow under one arm, his arrows under the other, while at his heels trotted Jumble, eager, playful, adoring - a mongrel unashamed - all sorts of a dog. And at William's heart was a proud, radiant happiness.
    • 4/5
      i read a book about authors and what they read and an incredible number included just william. i had never heard of these books. i got a dvd which used made for tv stories--not great. these stories are period pieces. good reader.
    • 4/5
      I definately must be going back to my childhood. I read these books when I was a child and really enjoyed them then and I enjoyed this just as much now. A way of life that is now fast disappearing.Back Cover Blurb:No matter how hard William Brown tries, his school uniform always looks tatty and disreputable, he mangles the English language in his speech and writing, and he can never remember any of the rules he's supposed to be following. Along with his gang, the Outlaws, he spends his days contriving schemes to make money, trying to get out of doing schoolwork, musing about the fact that girls are a different species and, he reckons, being generally misunderstood by teachers and all other adults.William is one of the most self-righteous characters in English fiction, always ready with a convoluted excuse to explain away his misdemeanours and elastic lies that get stretched to breaking point.
    • 3/5
      My childhood favourite. A young boy of the British middle class suburbs in the 1930s acts out his cowboy and Huckleberry Finn fantasies.
    • 4/5
      A whole other world. One of my introductions to irony, and adult literature in general.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant - I well remember laughing my socks off at these stories when I was about 11. If you can't get a laugh out of these too, there is almost certainly something seriously wrong with you.

      It is remarkable how Richmal Crompton manages to capture the mindset of a young boy.
    • 5/5
      I've read Just William several times, but I've never reviewed it, thinking perhaps it was too familiar (at least to British readers). But Just William is a book that makes me laugh out loud consistently, and not just me: I remember we listened to the audio version (wonderfully narrated by Martin Jarvis) on a journey through France many years ago and Mr SandDune having to stop the car because he was laughing so much that he couldn't safely drive. (Incidentally, the story 'The Show' in this book is the one that prompted that.)William Brown is 11. He is always 11 (despite the first book being written in 1922 and the last in 1970). He lives with his very long-suffering mother, his bewildered father, and his much more grown-up siblings Ethel and Robert (and a cook and a housemaid and a gardener as well) in a small town somewhere in the South of England. William doesn't exactly mean to be bad, at times he has a definite sense of morality, but in practice everything William touches turns to chaos. He just doesn't understand the adult world and the adult world, especially the genteel middle-class world inhabited by the Browns, most definitely does not understand him.In 'A Question of Grammar' William persuades himself that his father has given permission for him to have a party when his family is out:'The party then proceeded. It fulfilled the expectations of the guests that it was to be a party unlike any other party. At other parties they played "Hide and Seek”—with smiling but firm mothers and aunts and sisters stationed at intervals with damping effects upon one’s spirits, with “not in the bedrooms, dear,” and “mind the umbrella stand,” and “certainly not in the drawing-room,” and “don’t shout so loud, darling.” But this was Hide and Seek from the realms of perfection. Up the stairs and down the stairs, in all the bedrooms, sliding down the balusters, in and out of the drawing-room, leaving trails of muddy boots and shattered ornaments as they went! Ginger found a splendid hiding-place in Robert’s bed, where his boots left a perfect impression of their muddy soles in several places. Henry found another in Ethel’s wardrobe, crouching upon her satin evening shoes among her evening dresses. George banged the drawing-room door with such violence that the handle came off in his hand. Douglas became entangled in the dining-room curtain, which yielded to his struggles and descended upon him and an old china bowl upon the sideboard. It was such a party as none of them had dreamed of; it was bliss undiluted. The house was full of shouting and yelling, of running to and fro of small boys mingled with subterranean murmurs of cook’s rage.'Recommended for all ages - as long that is as you don't expect your children's fiction to have an improving quality!
    • 4/5
      I first heard of Just William through Morris Gleitzman’s Once series. I can’t say that I was as enamored with William as Gleitzman’s Felix is. I found William entertaining and terrifying in equal parts. A couple of the stories had me laughing to the point of tears, while William’s behavior in other stories made me so uneasy that I was tempted not to finish them. Eleven-year-old William has such a strong personality that his parents and older brother and sister are often powerless to curb his excesses. I picture William’s most enthusiastic reader as a preteen boy confined to his room as punishment for breaking the household rules, nursing his grievances in the pages of one of William’s adventures.
    • 5/5
      I read the William books as a young child. They were red hardback books that I´d inherited from my older siblings. However, we didn´t have this particular book, so I´ve now read it for the first time.William is the sort of boy who, if he were a real boy, and existed in this day and age, would probably be sent to an institution, or at the very least be heavily sedated with Ritalin, or something even worse.Apart from William, the Brown family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Brown and William´s older siblings, Robert and Ethel.Mrs. Brown is resigned and patient as regards William´s escapades, while Mr. Brown mostly contents himself with exclaiming “He´s mad, mad, I say!”William´s exploits are actually more than minor misdemeanours and, instead of mildly putting up with them, it might have been more fitting had the parents set some firm limits. But then of course the book wouldn´t have been so funny.This book was published in 1922 (I read the books for the first time in the 50s), and it contains quite a few old-fashioned and thus unfamiliar words and expressions. It is eloquently written; the author doesn´t talk down to the reader, and puts to good use her rich, extensive vocabulary.One linguistic feature that puzzles me is that, while the rest of the family talk in an absolutely refined and educated manner, William, though gifted with amazing powers of persuasion and articulation, expresses himself in a distinctly ungrammatical and “common” way, which in fact more resembles the speech of their servants, (William´s family is middle-class, and they were endowed with both a Cook and a housemaid, as far as I recall, and perhaps more servants.)In this book, William wanders into a nearby mansion and finds himself mistaken for a servant boy, “the new Boots” (whatever that is), and tries his hand at this, until it all ends tumultuously. In a later chapter his Great-Aunt Emily comes to visit; her only occupations are eating and sleeping, and when she sleeps she snores in an impressive and entertaining manner. The ever resourceful William avails himself of the opportunity to augment his pocket money by inviting the village children to come to witness/listen to this fascinating performance, and soon they´re all lining up and paying all they´ve got to witness the show. Subsequently, Great-Aunt Emily cuts short her stay, which had been threatening to become exceedingly long-lasting, and Mr. Brown, who was not enamoured of her, rewards William with half-a-crown. (And I recall a time when half-a-crown was quite a large sum!).The book contains innumerable further hilarious episodes, including one in which Mrs. Brown was so irresponsible as to entrust William with looking after a toddler for the afternoon, though Robert was shocked at her naïve trust in her younger son.I´m not a person that generally laughs aloud when watching a funny film or reading a funny book, but found myself doing so several times when reading this book. Since I´ve heard that laughing is extremely good for one, maybe I should read or re-read all the William books! I highly recommend them, including this one, to all.

    Book preview

    Just William - Richmal Crompton

    Just William by Richmal Crompton

    Richmal Crompton Lamburn was born in Bury, Lancashire, on November 15th, 1890.

    She attended St Elphin's Boarding School, originally based in Warrington, Lancashire and later moved with the school to a new location in Darley Dale, near Matlock, Derbyshire in 1904. To pursue her chosen career as a schoolteacher, she won a scholarship to Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London in Englefield Green, Surrey.

    In 1914 Richmal graduated with a BA honours degree in Classics (II class). She was also an active member of the Women's Suffrage movement.

    That same year she returned to St Elphin’s as a Classics mistress and then three years later to Bromley High School in southeast London where she also began her writing in earnest.

    Health though was an issue and in 1923 after contracting poliomyelitis, she was left without the use of her right leg. She gave up her teaching career and began to write full-time.

    Her writing was almost immediately very successful and within three years of leaving the teaching profession she had enough funds to build a house in Bromley for herself and her Mother.

    The source of most of this success was based on the short stories of William, a rather mischievous 11 year old schoolboy and his band of chums who called themselves The Outlaws.

    He first appeared in the short story Rice Mould Pudding, published in 1919. By 1922, the first collection, entitled Just William, was published and was followed by 37 others.

    Her health was a continuing issue in her forties. This time breast cancer, which required a mastectomy.

    Richmal believed her real calling was fiction for adults and in her career wrote 41 novels and 9 collections of short stories.  These did well for a time but after the end of World War II their Edwardian Class values were at odds with the change in society.

    William continued to better than her other works and several times Richmal tried to re-engineer the character; Enter – Patricia in 1927 and Jimmy in 1947.  William’s sales still trumped both.

    She never married or had children.

    Richmal Crompton died at her home in Chislehurst on January 11th, 1969.

    Index of Contents

    Chapter I - William Goes to the Pictures

    Chapter II - William the Intruder

    Chapter III - William Below Stairs

    Chapter IV - The Fall of the Idol

    Chapter V - The Show 

    Chapter VI - A Question of Grammar 

    Chapter VII - William Joins the Band of Hope

    Chapter VIII - The Outlaws

    Chapter IX - William and White Satin

    Chapter X - William’s New Year’s Day

    Chapter XI - The Best Laid Plans 

    Chapter XII - Jumble

    Richmal Crompton – A Concise Bibliography

    CHAPTER I

    WILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES

    It all began with William's aunt, who was in a good temper that morning, and gave him a shilling for posting a letter for her and carrying her parcels from the grocer's.

    Buy some sweets or go to the Pictures, she said carelessly, as she gave it to him.

    William walked slowly down the road, gazing thoughtfully at the coin. After deep calculations, based on the fact that a shilling is the equivalent of two sixpences, he came to the conclusion that both luxuries could be indulged in.

    In the matter of sweets, William frankly upheld the superiority of quantity over quality. Moreover, he knew every sweet shop within a two miles radius of his home whose proprietor added an extra sweet after the scale had descended, and he patronised these shops exclusively. With solemn face and eager eye, he always watched the process of weighing, and stingy shops were known and banned by him.

    He wandered now to his favourite confectioner and stood outside the window for five minutes, torn between the rival attractions of Gooseberry Eyes and Marble Balls. Both were sold at 4 ounces for 2d. William never purchased more expensive luxuries. At last his frowning brow relaxed and he entered the shop.

    Sixpennoth of Gooseberry Eyes, he said, with a slightly self-conscious air. The extent of his purchases rarely exceeded a penny.

    Hello! said the shopkeeper, in amused surprise.

    Gotter bit of money this mornin', explained William carelessly, with the air of a Rothschild.

    He watched the weighing of the emerald green dainties with silent intensity, saw with satisfaction the extra one added after the scale had fallen, received the precious paper bag, and, putting two sweets into his mouth, walked out of the shop.

    Sucking slowly, he walked down the road towards the Picture Palace. William was not in the habit of frequenting Picture Palaces. He had only been there once before in his life.

    It was a thrilling programme. First came the story of desperate crooks who, on coming out of any building, glanced cautiously up and down the street in huddled, crouching attitudes, then crept ostentatiously on their way in a manner guaranteed to attract attention and suspicion at any place and time. The plot was involved. They were pursued by police, they leapt on to a moving train and then, for no accountable reason, leapt from that on to a moving motor-car and from that they plunged into a moving river. It was thrilling and William thrilled. Sitting quite motionless, he watched, with wide, fascinated eyes, though his jaws never ceased their rotatory movement and every now and then his hand would go mechanically to the paper bag on his knees and convey a Gooseberry Eye to his mouth.

    The next play was a simple country love-story, in which figured a simple country maiden wooed by the squire, who was marked out as the villain by his moustachios.

    After many adventures the simple country maiden was won by a simple country son of the soil in picturesque rustic attire, whose emotions were faithfully portrayed by gestures that must have required much gymnastic skill; the villain was finally shown languishing in a prison cell, still indulging in frequent eye-brow play.

    Next came another love-story, this time of a noble-hearted couple, consumed with mutual passion and kept apart not only by a series of misunderstandings possible only in a picture play, but also by maidenly pride and reserve on the part of the heroine and manly pride and reserve on the part of the hero that forced them to hide their ardour beneath a cold and haughty exterior. The heroine's brother moved through the story like a good fairy, tender and protective towards his orphan sister and ultimately explained to each the burning passion of the other.

    It was moving and touching and William was moved and touched.

    The next was a comedy. It began by a solitary workman engaged upon the re-painting of a door and ended with a miscellaneous crowd of people, all covered with paint, falling downstairs on top of one another. It was amusing. William was riotously and loudly amused.

    Lastly came the pathetic story of a drunkard's downward path. 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. He had a small child with a pious and superior expression, who spent her time weeping over him and exhorting him to a better life, till, in a moment of justifiable exasperation, he threw a beer bottle at her head. He then bedewed her bed in Hospital with penitent tears, tore out his hair, flung up his arms towards Heaven, beat his waistcoat, and clasped her to his breast, so that it was not to be wondered at that, after all that excitement, the child had a relapse and with the words Good-bye, Father. Do not think of what you have done. I forgive you, passed peacefully away.

    William drew a deep breath at the end, and still sucking, arose with the throng and passed out.

    Once outside, he glanced cautiously around and slunk down the road in the direction of his home. Then he doubled suddenly and ran down a back street to put his imaginary pursuers off his track. He took a pencil from his pocket and, levelling it at the empty air, fired twice. Two of his pursuers fell dead, the rest came on with redoubled vigour. There was no time to be lost. Running for dear life, he dashed down the next street, leaving in his wake an elderly gentleman nursing his toe and cursing volubly. As he neared his gate, William again drew the pencil from his pocket and, still looking back down the road, and firing as he went, he rushed into his own gateway.

    William's father, who had stayed at home that day because of a bad headache and a touch of liver, picked himself up from the middle of a rhododendron bush and seized William by the back of his neck.

    You young ruffian, he roared, what do you mean by charging into me like that?

    William gently disengaged himself.

    I wasn't chargin', Father, he said, meekly. I was only jus' comin' in at the gate, same as other folks. I jus' wasn't looking jus' the way you were coming, but I can't look all ways at once, cause -

    Be quiet! roared William's father.

    Like the rest of the family, he dreaded William's eloquence.

    What's that on your tongue! Put your tongue out.

    William obeyed. The colour of William's tongue would have put to shame Spring's freshest tints.

    How many times am I to tell you, bellowed William's father, that I won't have you going about eating filthy poisons all day between meals?

    It's not filthy poison, said William. It's jus' a few sweets Aunt Susan gave me 'cause I kin'ly went to the post office for her an' -

    Be quiet! Have you got any more of the foul things?

    They're not foul things, said William, doggedly. They're good. Jus' have one, an' try. They're jus' a few sweets Aunt Susan kin'ly gave me an' -

    Be quiet! Where are they?

    Slowly and reluctantly William drew forth his bag. His father seized it and flung it far into the bushes. For the next ten minutes William conducted a thorough and systematic search among the bushes and for the rest of the day consumed Gooseberry Eyes and garden soil in fairly equal proportions.

    He wandered round to the back garden and climbed on to the wall.

    Hello! said the little girl next door, looking up.

    Something about the little girl's head and curls reminded William of the simple country maiden. There was a touch of the artistic temperament about William. He promptly felt himself the simple country son of the soil.

    Hullo, Joan, he said in a deep, husky voice intended to be expressive of intense affection. Have you missed me while I've been away?

    Didn't know you'd been away, said Joan. What are you talking so funny for?

    I'm not talkin' funny, said William in the same husky voice, I can't help talkin' like this.

    You've got a cold. That's what you've got. That's what Mother said when she saw you splashing about with your rain tub this morning. She said, 'The next thing that we shall hear of William Brown will be he's in bed with a cold.'

    It's not a cold, said William mysteriously. It's jus' the way I feel.

    What are you eating?

    Gooseberry Eyes. Like one? He took the packet from his pocket and handed it down to her. Go on. Take two, three, he said in reckless generosity.

    But they're - dirty.

    Go on. It's only ord'nery dirt. It soon sucks off. They're jolly good. He poured a shower of them lavishly down to her.

    I say, he said, reverting to his character of simple country lover. Did you say you'd missed me? I bet you didn't think of me as much as I did of you. I jus' bet you didn't. His voice had sunk deeper and deeper till it almost died away.

    I say, William, does your throat hurt you awful, that you've got to talk like that?

    Her blue eyes were anxious and sympathetic.

    William put one hand to his throat and frowned.

    A bit, he confessed lightly.

    Oh, William! she clasped her hands. Does it hurt all the time?

    Her solicitude was flattering.

    I don't talk much about it, anyway, do I? he said manfully.

    She started up and stared at him with big blue eyes.

    Oh, William! Is it, is it your - lungs? I've got an aunt that's got lungs and she coughs and coughs, William coughed hastily, and it hurts her and makes her awful bad. Oh, William, I do hope you've not got lungs.

    Her tender, anxious little face was upturned to him. I guess I have got lungs, he said, but I don't make a fuss about 'em.

    He coughed again.

    What does the doctor say about it?

    William considered a minute.

    He says it's lungs all right, he said at last. He says I gotter be jolly careful.

    William, would you like my new paintbox?

    I don't think so. Not now. Thanks.

    I've got three balls and one's quite new. Wouldn't you like it, William?

    No, thanks. You see, it's no use my collectin' a lot of things. You never know with lungs.

    Oh, William!

    Her distress was pathetic.

    Of course, he said hastily, if I'm careful it'll be all right. Don't you worry about me.

    Joan! from the house.

    That's Mother. Good-bye, William dear. If Father brings me home any chocolate, I'll bring it in to you. I will, honest. Thanks for the Gooseberry Eyes. Good-bye.

    Good-bye, and don't worry about me, he added bravely.

    He put another Gooseberry Eye into his mouth and wandered round aimlessly to the front of the house. His grown-up sister, Ethel, was at the front door, shaking hands with a young man.

    I'll do all I can for you, she was saying earnestly.

    Their hands were clasped.

    I know you will, he said equally earnestly.

    Both look and handclasp were long. The young man walked away. Ethel stood at the door, gazing after him, with a far-away look in her eyes. William was interested.

    That was Jack Morgan, wasn't it? he said.

    Yes, said Ethel absently and went into the house.

    The look, the long handclasp, the

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