William.

Red cloth binding with black title on the spine and front board.

Illustrated by Thomas Henry The 12th in the series of Richmal Crompton's books about the eleven year old William Brown and his three compatriots, together known as the Outlaws. First published in 1929 the book is a collection of short stories featuring William and his unfailing belief in his own ingenuity and righteousness, Although combative, almost pugnacious, in his efforts to be free to experience excitement and adventure within the confines of a village community, William is unquestioning of the right of adults to exert authority and to exact retribution for those acts which he and the Outlaws had otherwise justified to themselves. In these more enlightened times William and his gang would undoubtedly be the subject of attention by the police and social workers. His "crimes" include not only petty theft from his own family but also breaking and entering, theft, deception and continual acts of trespass.

Richmal Crompton Lamburn (15 November 1890 – 11 January 1969) was a popular English writer, best known for her Just William series of books, humorous short stories, and to a lesser extent adult fiction books. Crompton's best known books are the William stories, about a mischievous 11-year-old schoolboy and his band of friends, known as "The Outlaws". Her first published short story featuring William was "Rice Mould Pudding", published in Home Magazine in 1919. (She had written "The Outlaws" in 1917, but it was not published until later.) In 1922, the first collection, entitled Just William, was published. She wrote 38 other William books throughout her life. The last, William the Lawless, was published posthumously in 1970. The William books sold over twelve million copies in the United Kingdom alone. They have been adapted for films, stage-plays, and numerous radio and television series. Illustrations by Thomas Henry contributed to their success. Crompton saw her real work as writing adult fiction. Starting with The Innermost Room (1923), she wrote 41 novels for adults and published nine collections of short stories. Their focus was generally village life in the Home Counties. Though these novels have the same inventiveness and lack of sentimentality as the 'William' books, after the Second World War, such literature had an increasingly limited appeal. Even William was originally created for a grown-up audience, as she saw Just William as a potboiler (Cadogan, 1933). She was pleased by its success, but seemed frustrated that her other novels and short stories did not receive the same recognition. Her first published tale was published in The Girl's Own Paper in 1918, concerning a little boy named Thomas, a forerunner of William who reacts against authority. Crompton tried several times to reformulate William for other audiences. Jimmy (1949) was aimed at younger children, and Enter – Patricia (1927) at girls. Crompton wrote two more Jimmy books, but no more Patricia, and neither was as successful as William. As for the source of inspiration of the main character William, Crompton never disclosed it and therefore different opinions exist. Presumably it was the result of mixing observations of children she worked with or knew with her own imagination. According to the actor John Teed, whose family lived next door to Crompton, the model for William was Crompton's nephew Tommy: As a boy I knew Miss Richmal Crompton Lamburn well. She lived quietly with her mother in Cherry Orchard Road, Bromley Common. My family lived next door. In those days it was a small rural village. Miss Lamburn was a delightful unassuming young woman and I used to play with her young nephew Tommy. He used to get up to all sorts of tricks and he was always presumed to be the inspiration for William by all of us. Having contracted polio she was severely crippled and confined to a wheelchair. Owing to her restricted movements she took her setting from her immediate surroundings which contained many of the features described, such as unspoilt woods and wide streams and Biggin Hill Aerodrome, very active in the Twenties. Crompton's fiction centres around family and social life, dwelling on the constraints that they place on individuals while also nurturing them. This is best seen in her depiction of children as puzzled onlookers of society's ways. Nevertheless, the children, particularly William and his Outlaws, almost always emerge triumphant. The William books have been translated into nine languages. Thomas Henry (born Thomas Henry Fisher) (1879–1962) was an English illustrator, best remembered for his illustrations of Richmal Crompton's William books. Thomas Henry created the image of William Brown in 1919 for the Home Magazine. It was not based on any particular child, but rather from the author's description and his own imagination. Nearly forty years old at the time, this was the start of a writer-illustrator relationship with Richmal Crompton that lasted until his death forty-three years later. He illustrated William stories in the Home Magazine (1919–1922) and in the Happy Mag (1922 onwards). He illustrated and painted book covers for a total of thirty-three William books for the publisher Newnes. He also produced numerous William strip cartoons for magazines. He drew about eight hundred cartoons of three frames per story for Woman's Own magazine from 1947 to 1962. The illustrations for the magazines were done in a traditional hatch style. Surprisingly Thomas Henry met Richmal Crompton face-to-face only once, at a book festival luncheon in Nottingham. Their meeting created some publicity, much to his embarrassment. However, Thomas Henry created all the cartoons with the approval of Richmal Crompton, and would consult her if the publisher's storyline was atypical of the character of William Brown. As William Brown did not age with time, the image of William changed little over forty-three years. However, William's original attire of waistcoat and starched collar was subsequently changed by Henry to a more modern style. At the time of his death Thomas Henry had only completed some of the drawings for the thirty-fourth book William and the Witch. Hence, some illustration in this book are by Thomas Henry and the rest are by his successor Henry Ford.