If headmasters were honest a prospectus would be a book which sa how many kanes he hav, contane a warning about the skool dog and the amount of prunes and rice served during the term. Nigel Molesworth may not be the best student St Custard's will ever have, but he is certainly able to express his feelings about his beloved school - not to mention botany walks and foopball. With his handy guide to Masters at a Glance (Know the Enemy) and Lessons (chiz chiz) and How to Avoid Them, no noble brave fearless etc. boy will ever have to suffer at the hands of the 'swots, bulies, milksops greedy guts and oiks' ever again WIZZ.

All skools make some sort at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons ect. which make the heart sink when you look at it. Nigel Molesworth is back, this time taking the tinies in hand and showing that they can survive the first term - as long as you avoid the prefects and show all due respect to Molesworth 1. Back to Skool might be particularly hard on Mater and Pater, but think of those poor new bugs, forced to be their best at Latin, English, foopball and French (Armand in his striped shirt and feeble questions). Just follow his timeless advice, however, and you too could be Topp.

Book by Geoffrey Willans

I need hardly tell you the esential thing about a football i.e. nobody need tell me to get rid of it. i do not want it in the first place. Wot is the use of having a soaking wet piece of leather pushed at you? Give me a hadock every time, at least you can eat it. Poor Nigel Molesworth is back at St Custard's, being snarled at by Grimes and forced to endure the good old footer season. But despite the distractions of hideous Molesworth 2 and weedy fotherington-tomas, he will still share all his secrets to passing exams and being a grown up. But what's this? A resolution to be good? And to luv gurls? Is this the end of the Nigel Molesworth known and loved by millions - or will he be bored by teatime?

Nigel Molesworth, the curse of St. Custard’s, has been known to his huge army of fans through the four books Down with Skool!, How to be Topp, Whizz for Atomms and Back in the Jug Agane, which were first published between 1953 and 1958, all illustrated by Ronald Searle. What are fare less well-known are the Molesworth diaries that appeared in the magazine Punch between August 1939 and December 1942. Apart from a few of these pieces appearing in various compilation volumes, they have never been republished – until now. This is an opportunity to discover a slightly different Molesworth – less philosophical than the one portrayed in the books, but equally as sardonic, knowing and cynical. The diaries are not, perhaps, as consistently funny as the books, but they should be regarded as an introduction to the world and mind of Molesworth, and as such are essential reading for all Molesworth fans.

. with dustjacket, 1983, very slight fading to dustjacket, clean copy