This is part of an ongoing series where I write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.
I’m going through the alphabet, and had a bit of a choice for C. Well, lots of choices, of course, but there are two authors I’ve been avidly collecting for years who begin with C – Ivy Compton-Burnett and Richmal Crompton. I’ve gone for Crompton, but maybe I’ll do ICB for I as a sneaky way in.
How many books do I have by Richmal Crompton?
For the sake of this post, I haven’t included any of the William books, though I do have about ten of them. Mostly so I can make this manageable. Because, even just looking at the novels and short stories she wrote for adults, I have 41. Our Richmal was prolific.
I do have Family Roundabout in the Persephone edition too, but forgot when I took the photo, since it’s in a different part of the house.
How many of these have I read?
I’ve put them in piles of read and unread here – the pile on the right being the ones I’ve read. I think. Most of my avid Crompton reading was around 2002-2004, and I’m a bit hazy on some of them. But I think I’ve read 30 of her books.
How did I start reading Crompton?
I don’t remember when I first read the William books, though I suspect I came to them first through Martin Jarvis’s wonderful narration. I know that I played Ginger (and Colin played William) in a village show when we were 8 or 9.
But I started reading her books for adults in 2002, when I was in Hay-on-Wye and happened to see one on a shelf. I think it was Frost at Morning, though it might have been Weatherley Parade or Family Roundabout. Those were certainly the first three I read.
And fun fact, it’s how I discovered Persephone – I’d read Family Roundabout in an early edition before I knew Persephone existed, and when I saw their edition at my local library, it got me thinking what other books they’d published that I might like.
General impressions….
I was obsessed for a few years, binge reading Crompton. And this was in that sweet spot of the internet – where a world of booksellers were opened up, but before everyone knew exactly how much their books were worth and before everybody was buying books online. It would be much more expensive to get these piles of Cromptons now, though thankfully Bello and Greyladies have brought quite a few of her books back into print.
I don’t know if I read all her best books early on or if my taste is changing, but when I read more Crompton now, I do find her to be lacking a little in finesse. It’s undoubtedly true that the same sorts of characters appear time and ago, and she is far too given to ellipses for effect. They aren’t great writing. But they are still delightful places of comfort to go, and at her best, she can be deliciously funny and suddenly poignant.