Just William by Richmal Crompton, 1922.

William Brown is an imaginative young boy who gets into trouble in various ways. People often don’t understand why William does the things he does because they don’t know what books he’s been reading or movies he’s been watching that inspire him to his various escapades.

William isn’t an example of how anybody should behave. He frequently lies to get his way, and he and his friends have formed a kind of club that they call the Outlaws, and they play at being outlaws. William is a scamp and a troublemaker, who sometimes means well and sometimes doesn’t because, after all, he thinks of himself as an outlaw. His family well know what William is like and the scrapes he’s likely to get into unsupervised, yet he is often left unsupervised and even given some responsibilities, which inevitably go horribly wrong.

This is the first book in a series, and each chapter in the book is a short story. Most of the books in the series are also collections of short stories. The stories are funny, but there are some things modern readers should be aware of, especially before sharing them with modern children.

This vintage British children’s series is well-known, although it has faced criticism for the ways the children in the stories treat animals. There are multiple incidents in this book – from the things the kids do with their pets when they have a circus to the lizard William accidentally kills in his pocket to the pet rat that gets killed when William tries to teach it to be friends with his dog.

There are also instances of inappropriate racial language, especially related to Native Americans because William finds them fascinating, at least in the way that books and movies portray them. At one point in this book, William pretends to be an American Indian, and the girl his brother likes plays along with him. William darkens his face with cork for the game, and the language they use with each other is stereotypical of old stories and movies with American Indians, like “paleface”, “red Indian”, and “squaw.” Various people use the phrase “Honest Injun” in the story.

The Just William series has been popular in Britain for decades, and stories from it have been made into films and television series multiple times.

Stories in the Book

1. William Goes to the Pictures

William has a little extra money, so he buys some candy and goes to the picture shows. (These are silent pictures because of the time period, and William notes how exaggerated the actors’ facial expressions and gestures are.) William is inspired by the movies he’s seen, and he spends the rest of the day acting out what he’s seen, producing some embarrassing results because real life aren’t like movies.

2. William the Intruder

William’s older brother, Robert, has a crush on a girl. Robert gets their mother to invite her to tea, but he worries that William will mess things up because William often does. Their mother says that William will need to have tea with the family, but William is under strict instructions to spend the rest of the time playing outside and staying out of the way. However, the girl turns out to be a good sport who likes children, and she joins William in a game of pretend, where they pretend to be American Indians. Robert is disappointed that the girl seems to like William better than she likes him.

3. William Below Stairs

William gets into trouble at home, and feeling hurt and misunderstood by the just criticisms of his latest escapades with a balloon and inspired by a book that he’s been reading, he decides that the thing to do is to set out into the world to seek his fortune as a poor but deserving young man. He figures that everyone will be sorry when he gets rich with gold nuggets (like in the story) and won’t share them. Deciding that he will start out as a beggar and approaching a wealthy house to beg, William is mistaken for a boy who is supposed to be a new servant and gets his first taste of domestic labor. It turns out that being a poor but deserving young man requires more work than William is willing or able to do.

4. The Fall of the Idol

William gets a crush on his teacher and tries everything he can think of to impress her, including (gasp) actually studying for a change. Unfortunately, his teacher definitely doesn’t feel the same way about him.

5. The Show

William and his friends, a group called the Outlaws, decide to hold a circus. Aunt Emily, a hypochondriac relative who’s been making an unwelcome long stay with the family becomes an unwitting side show as the “fat wild woman” when William charges viewers to see her sleep and snore loudly. When the aunt wakes up and catches William and his guests, it ends her visit, but William’s father is actually relieved.

6. A Question of Grammar

William is bored on a rainy day, his family members all have something to do, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His mother’s suggestions are all boring ideas, his siblings have friends over, and his father just wants to be left alone. William asks his mother if he can have a friend over, but she says it’s too late to ask anybody. His family is all relieved when the rain is finally over, and they can send William outside to play.

However, William is still thinking about the idea of having friends over and having a party. His father emphatically refuses to consider the idea of William having a party, but later, a lesson at school about double negatives convinces William that his father’s refusal can actually be taken as approval. He knows the rest of his family will be going to visit an aunt soon, so he invites the children from his class at school to a party while his family is gone. The cook refuses to believe that William really has approval to have all of those children over, so she locks them outside, but William turns the party activity into a storming of the castle and a wild game of hide-and-seek!

7. William Joins the Band of Hope

When William’s mother makes him get cleaned up and try reading a book for a change, he accidentally convinces a visitor that he’s a serious and shy little darling. The visitor is a socially prominent woman who is involved with good works, and she persuades William’s mother to have him participate in one of her projects because children of their “class” are a good influence on others. William’s mother has doubts about how well that description fits William, but she is anxious to please this socially prominent guest, so she agrees to let William participate. William tries to get out of it by faking sick and pretending that he has a sprained ankle, but his family is unconvinced by his charades. However, it turns out that William’s other friends, part of a group they like to call the “Outlaws”, have also been recruited for the project. They make the meeting more interesting for the other children by teaching them a variation of William’s favorite game – one that his mother has forbidden him to play because it’s too rough.

8. The Outlaws

William’s mother volunteers him to take a neighbor’s baby for a walk as a favor, in spite of William’s brother pointing out that William might not be the most responsible person to look after a baby for any length of time. Unfortunately, William’s brother refuses to take care of the baby himself, so William is left with the chore that people should know he isn’t likely to carry out responsibly. William resents his mother giving him this task on his half day off school, and he dreads what his friends will say if they see him pushing a baby carriage. Then, William gets an idea. He takes the baby along to a meeting of the Outlaws as a kidnap victim to be held for ransom. The other Outlaws are thrilled with the idea, but the baby turns out to be too much for all of them.

9. William and White Satin

William is enlisted to be a page boy at a relative’s wedding, very much against his will. The bride thinks the idea of him being a page boy is sweet and romantic, but William knows all of his friends will make fun of him, seeing him dressed in the white satin outfit he has to wear. What saves the day for William is that the young girl recruited to be the bridesmaid thinks the whole thing is as sickeningly sweet as he does. When the two of them get too dirty in their outfits to take part in the ceremony, they are mercifully left at home to play their own games, and they think that’s much more fun and romantic than any wedding!

10. William’s New Year’s Day

Mr. Moss, who runs the store where William buys candy, says that he’s been asking the same woman to marry him every New Year’s Day for 10 years. William thinks that’s too many years to ask anybody over and over again, and he can’t understand who would turn down somebody who owns a sweet shop. On New Year’s Day, Mr. Moss has to run to catch his train to meet the lady, so he leaves William in charge until his nephew shows up to manage the shop. Mr. Moss thinks that William will only be in charge for a few minutes, but his nephew is sick and doesn’t come. William, left in charge, takes far more candy than Mr. Moss said he could have and attempts to overcharge another customer to cover the difference while he is overwhelmingly generous to a pretty girl he likes. Then, he generously hosts his friends and makes a mess. When Mr. Moss returns around lunch time, he would be more angry except that the lady finally agrees to marry him, and in the end, William has to cope with a serious stomach ache.

11. The Best Laid Plans

A young man has a crush on William’s sister, so he recruits/bribes William to be his confederate in a scheme to impress Ethel, getting him to fake sick on a trip with his sister so the young man can step in and “rescue” them by carrying William home. However, William turns out to be more of a handful (literally) than the young man expects, and the pet white rats that were William’s bribe cause chaos in the Brown household. (One of the rats meets a sad end from William’s dog when he tries to teach the two to be friends.)

12. ‘Jumble’

Although William’s dog, Jumble, appears in earlier stories in the book, this story is about how William acquired Jumble. Jumble the dog follows William home one day. He has a collar with his name on it but since he’s loose by himself, William thinks he’s a stray. His family tells him to take the dog to a police station to see if he has an owner, but William just can’t bring himself to leave Jumble there, so he brings him back home and tells his family that the dog followed him again. Eventually, Jumble’s owners do find him again with William. William insists that he didn’t steal Jumble, and he reluctantly asks if the family who owns him if they want him back. The girl in the family, who is William’s age, decides to give Jumble to William because she’s decided that she wants a Pomeranian instead, and the father of the family, who is an artist, sketches William with Jumble because he thinks that William has such an interesting expression.