Just William's Luck
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4.2 • 21 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
In this full-length Just William novel, William and the Outlaws decide to form the Knights of the Square Table, 'rightin' wrongs' for a minor fee ('Small wrongs: sixpence. Big wrongs: one shillin'.) In their quest to earn enough money to become tramps, they stop at no amount of do-gooding, embarking on a plan to marry off their older brothers. William becomes a veritable Don Juan as he woos a visiting film star for his brother (much to the surprise and annoyance of his brother's girlfriend.) Soon the gang have planned a midnight haunting to scare off old monkey face from the big house on the hill - after all, where else will they find a home for the happy young couple? Martin Jarvis portrays the whole gang in this riotous comedy that leaves William teetering on the brink of disaster and success... 'Martin Jarvis's recording of Richmal Crompton's Just William stories are works of genius' - Independent.
Musical Theme: Won't You Be My Ginger? composed and performed by Richard Dworsky (piano) (c) 1995 Inner Vista Music (BMI)
Customer Reviews
Incompetent editorial management
William is the eponymous hero, of almost 40 books and over 300 stories wriitten by Richmal Crompton. An indomitable eleven-year-old boy with a vivid imagination (one which once configured quickly assumes his reality) is undeterred is his often heroic missions to right a wrong, accept a challenge, upend adult mores, or win the approval of a small girl. Writing with comic empathy, Crompton uses William’s anarchic pursuits to gently satirize the middle-class, Edwardian world into which William has been born. This may be why these wonderful stories about this ebullient small boy never fail to make me laugh, and do not date.
Beautifully read by Martin Jarvis, the audio books are also a treat. it is editorial management of the production which is so inconsistent. Crompton gave every one of her William anthologies a different title: William’s Happy Days, William the Pirate, etc., but not the BBC when several of their audio books are called Just William, sometimes with a numeral.
Moreover, the stories in their collections are drawn from the whole corpus of Compton’s work. Picking what they believe to be the best, again and again the best stories are often repeated. It is very very irritating to pay for a new collection only to discover that you have heard a particular story before.