Hardly a bodice buster but an informative and well researched biography of a Victorian woman who lived a fairly sedate life. True, she had her personal dramas, getting polio and losing complete control of one leg in her early 30s and breaking her legs in her 70s. Richmal Crompton was a spinster and a...
conservative Christian who almost certainly died a virgin. So where's the drama and interest there? Well perhaps not much by today's standards.But she was very much a 'people' person, an observer of others and a generally sociable individual.
Her insight into the mind of an eleven year old boy remains a marvel, and some thing she never achieved with girls; despite several efforts she never created a female 'William' equivalent.
This book relates the events of her life, but that is not its main interest. It links themes and characters in the novels (of which she wrote 40 or more, now largely forgotten) to the people and happenings in her actual life.
She was clearly an extra-ordinary person of great insight and acumen and this book does us, and her, a service by bringing this to light. One returns to the William stories with a sharper sense of appreciation of her humour and superb writing after reading this book.
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