The Fitzwilliam needs your first editions of Molesworth

Do you have a first edition of Molesworth? The Fitzwilliam is giving members of the public the chance to display their books in its latest exhibition.

Ronald Searle: ‘Obsessed with drawing’ celebrates the work of Ronald Searle (1920-2011). As part of the displays the Museum would like to show first editions of some of the illustrated books which made him most famous: the series devoted to the antics of the anarchic schoolboy Nigel Molesworth, co-published between 1953 and 1958 with the writer Geoffrey Willans. It will also display one of the artist’s original drawings, made in 1999 for the cover of a later edition of The Compleet Molesworth.

The self-styled ‘Gorilla of 3B’ and ‘curse of St Custards’ (the name of the fictional boarding school he attended), Molesworth and his pronouncements and erratic spelling marked the childhood of a generation of readers: the Museum would like to display your treasured copy and to hear your memories. Born in Cambridge, Searle is best known for his comic depictions of unruly school children and in particular as the inventor of the girls’ school St. Trinian’s (1948), which preceded the Molesworth series.

The Fitzwilliam can exhibit up to four Molesworth books as part of the display and would like your help in tracking down first editions of:

• Down with Skool! A Guide to School Life for Tiny Pupils and their Parents(1953)
• How to be Topp (1954)
• Whizz for Atomms (1956)
• Back in the Jug Agane (1959)
• The Compleet Molesworth (1958)

Please contact the Museum with suggestions, either by email at press@fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk or via Twitter or Instagram by copying the Museum’s accounts: @FitzMuseum_UK (Twitter) or fitzmuseum_uk (Instagram). Suggestions need to reach the Museum by Monday 21 September to allow time to be included in the show. The exhibition Ronald Searle: ‘Obsessed with drawing’ opens on Tuesday 13 October. Admission is free.

11 September 2015