Will and representation

It was lovely to see an article on Just William (“Embrace a scruffy boy”, Culture, 19 September), but it behoves editors always to be wary of pieces that arrive with the tag, “no one has written anything on…”.

While we would of course like more, we are aware of 12 examples since the mid-1980s on the subject. These include Kay Williams’ Just Richmal (1986), Mary Cadogan and David Schutte’s The William Companion (1991) and Mary Cadogan’s Just William through the Ages (1994), plus papers in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly by Ralph Stewart (“William Brown’s World”) and Lois Rauch Gibson (“Beyond the Apron: Archetypes, Stereotypes, and Alternative Portrayals of Mothers in Children’s Literature”), both published in 1988.

Farah Mendlesohn, Anglia Ruskin University
Andrew M. Butler, Canterbury Christ Church University