Molesworth

School is wet and weedy, according to Nigel Molesworth, the goriller of 3B, curse of St Custard's and superb chronicler of fifties English life.

Nothing escapes his disaffected eye and he has little time for such things as botany walks and cissy poetry with an assortment of swots, snekes and oiks. Instead he is very good at missing lessons, charming masters and putting down little brothers, in fact he is exceptional at most things except spelling.

Wildly funny and full of sharp observations on life, the Molesworth tetralogy is magnificently complemented by the illustrations of Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle was born in 1920 and educated at the Cambridge School of Art. He was a hugely successful graphic artist and pictorial satirist, and also the creator of the wonderfully wicked St. Trinians. He died in 2011, at the age of 91.