Compleet Molesworth

Rating:
Summary: Swift has Nothing on Willians& Searle is Icing on the Cake.
Review:

That the quadriga produced by the author and artist is screamingly funny is to vastly under-rate the brilliance of their œuvre.

Eternal truths about children and the deformative pressures of society upon them are illuminated with style that cuts, bludgeons, and pierces yet produces only tears of laughter.

The books were produced in the 1950's and Ronald Searle shot to the top decades ago. Geoffry Willians has written at least a half dozen more books since MOLESWORTH. One of the Four has been reprinted and will be available soon. No doubt, the others will soon follow. I read these when in my early twenties; now in my early sixties, I can't wait to read them again.

As another reviewer pointed out; these are children's books for adults and adult's books for children but are much, much more than children's books!

Rating:
Summary: Memo to file: Zoom about and remove traps for dere Santa
Review: I am the proud possessor of Down With Skool, How to be Topp, and Molesworth's Guide to the Atomic Age in original bindings. I say "possessor" because I've highjacked them from my mother and brother. Needless to say, knowing that a re-print is out there is proof positive that dere Santa does exist. 'Pon my soul, darling Arabella, but life may not be as tuough as it seems. What I hadn't known until I ran across the factoid some years ago is that Searle began drawing while in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, with burned matches. Since then I've always wondered to what extent that experience informed his views of st custards.
Anyone who enjoys eccentricities and eccentrics simply must have these works in his library, right alongside Wodehouse and Betty McDonald. There is nothing like them.
Just one question: What exactly does the mrs joyful prize actually look like?

Rating:
Summary: Memo to file: Zoom about and remove traps for dere Santa
Review: I am the proud possessor of Down With Skool, How to be Topp, and Molesworth's Guide to the Atomic Age in original bindings. I say "possessor" because I've highjacked them from my mother and brother. Needless to say, knowing that a re-print is out there is proof positive that dere Santa does exist. 'Pon my soul, darling Arabella, but life may not be as tuough as it seems. What I hadn't known until I ran across the factoid some years ago is that Searle began drawing while in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, with burned matches. Since then I've always wondered to what extent that experience informed his views of st custards.
Anyone who enjoys eccentricities and eccentrics simply must have these works in his library, right alongside Wodehouse and Betty McDonald. There is nothing like them.
Just one question: What exactly does the mrs joyful prize actually look like?

Rating:
Summary: Help !! Catch my error in MOLESWORTH review!!
Review: I mis-spelled the authors name;twice! Willans has no (I) after the (ll). Can you please correct; that is if you publish it.

Rating:
Summary: In praise of Molesworth. chizz chizz chizz.
Review: It is uterly wet and weedy, but I sa as long as there are clouds and sky (dere Fotherington-Thomas), and skools and MASTERS and noble brave fearless BOYS - and GURLS as well! chizz chizz, and lat. french, geog. hist. geom. peotry and even swots, bulies, snekes,oiks and greedy guts; then, my deres, there MUST also be the timeless prose encountered in 'The Compleet Molesworth'. This heady reference work is kindness of that worthy scribe, Geoffrey Willans and the unassailable art of Ronald Searle, master of the scratchy pen illustration. Noone else in the world space universe could draw Molesworth 1 & 2, gillibrand, peason, grabber, et al with such fearsome accuracy. As long as we have this rich chronicle on education to dive into, then our future generations of skoolchildren shall be uterly safe.
As any fule kno.

Rating:
Summary: Topp of the whizz
Review: Ol' Nigel is the topp of the whizz Its Jokes are really weird chizz But oh surprise,don't you know whence comes the name of th'school of tooday's top of the show? Read at page 131 or so (Penguin edition) a little piece named ...shiver whit anticipation the Hogwarts!...hem hem,so well, doesn't that ring a little bell?

Rating:
Summary: Up with molesworth
Review: The Molesworeth books made me laugh when I was the same age as Molesworth, and they still make me laugh now I ma probably the same age as headmaster GRIMES chizz chizz chizz. Delightful to find all four books in one volume, and encounter again Molesworth himself, and Peason, Fotherington-Thomas who sa hello clouds, hello sky and skip like a girlie, Sigismund the mad Maths master, and all the rest. Willan's hilarious prose and Searle's marvellous drawings complement each other perfectly. Like a previous reviewer, I too would like to knwo what the Mrs Joyful prize looks like, but you can't have everything. As for another reviewer worrying about spelling Willan's name wrong, well, who knows how to spell Willan anyway? For years and years I thought his name was Williams! Spelling is for girlies anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Up with molesworth
Review: The Molesworeth books made me laugh when I was the same age as Molesworth, and they still make me laugh now I ma probably the same age as headmaster GRIMES chizz chizz chizz. Delightful to find all four books in one volume, and encounter again Molesworth himself, and Peason, Fotherington-Thomas who sa hello clouds, hello sky and skip like a girlie, Sigismund the mad Maths master, and all the rest. Willan's hilarious prose and Searle's marvellous drawings complement each other perfectly. Like a previous reviewer, I too would like to knwo what the Mrs Joyful prize looks like, but you can't have everything. As for another reviewer worrying about spelling Willan's name wrong, well, who knows how to spell Willan anyway? For years and years I thought his name was Williams! Spelling is for girlies anyway.

Rating:
Summary: 20th century classic - JK Rowling tip your hat
Review: This is one of the funniest compendiums I have ever read. Gloriously, delightfully, and devastatingly accurate caricatures by the great Ronald Searle bring to life the hysterical adventures of the fearsome, loathsome nigel molesworth, the curse of st. custards, his grate frend peason, the oiks, cads, MASTERS and of course his own bro molesworth II chiz chiz chiz. the late author, Geoff Willans, was an for a short time a schoolmaster, and he obviously recorded EVERYTHING he saw while he was at it.

Maybe it's larking on an esoteric subject you have to have experienced to see the funny side - in which case it would be totally lost on those outside the English grammar school system of twenty years ago and more - but for my money there is no funnier book around. What's more I think JK Rowling owes Willans and Searle a debt - surely it is no coincedence that she named her legendary school of wizardry and witchcraft "Hogwarts" after a fictional Molesworthian Latin play?

Totally, utterly recommended.