Nigel Molesworth

Nigel Molesworth is a fictional character, the supposed author of a series of books (actually written by Geoffrey Willans), with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle.

The Molesworth books were the result of an approach by Willans to the cartoonist, Searle, to illustrate a series of books based on a column he had been writing for Punch. They appeared in instalments in the children's magazine The Young Elizabethan, described by Molesworth as "the super smashing New Young Elizabethan ahem (advert.)". Searle had grown disillusioned with his (very popular) St Trinian's School series but had promised his publisher Max Parrish another Christmas best-seller. Searle was initially sceptical about another school-based project but was won over by the examples he was given to read by Willans. Between the initial publication in 1953 and Willans' death in 1958 (aged 47) three books were completed and most of a fourth (Back in the Jug Agane) written; the Compleet Molesworth anthology was also under way. The first book, Down With Skool, was published in October 1953 and by that Christmas had sold, according to Searle, 53,848 copies, surpassing the performance of the previous year's The Terror of St Trinian's.

Nigel is a schoolboy at St Custard's, a fictional (and terrible) prep school located in a carefully unspecified part of England. It is ruled with an iron fist by Headmaster Grimes (BA, Stoke-on-Trent), who is constantly in search of cash to supplement his income and has a part-time business running a whelk stall. Other masters include Sigismund Arbuthnot, the mad maths master, who frequently appears as Molesworth's nemesis in his daydreams.

St Custard's has 62 pupils and, according to Molesworth, "was built by a madman in 1836". Pupils include Grabber, the head boy and winner of the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia-work, whose father owns a publishing business; Peason, Molesworth's "grate frend" [sic] and companion on his frequently imagined interplanetary adventures; Fotherington-Thomas [sic], the school sissy; and Molesworth 2, Nigel's annoying younger brother. The school's traditional local rivals are Porridge Court, who regularly beat them at sporting events.

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