How peculiar to discover Richmal Crompton (1890-1969) included in The Independent Forgotten Author’s series in an article dated 23 May 2010. William Brown has hardly been forgotten if the over 8,000 results for books, CDs and DVDs that came up on Amazon today is anything to go by. Since their debut in 1919, the Just William stories have been translated into 28 languages and have spawned numerous radio and TV spin offs, the best of which to my mind are the BBC audiobooks read by the fabulous Martin Jarvis. If anything has been forgotten about Richmal Crompton, it’s the fact that she actually wrote books for adults. Even Christopher Fowler, the author of Forgotten Authors No 54 , only mentions this in passing: “Crompton wrote for adults too”. That’s all he has to say on the subject. But for Crompton it was a source of regret that her 41 novels and 9 short story collections were overshadowed by her children’s books. Yes, 41 novels. I had no idea either but now, thanks to Persephone Boo