# A P.G. Wodehouse query **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-p-g-wodehouse-query/679179 "2014-01-19T02:30:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-p-g-wodehouse-query/679179/21 "2014-01-19T22:00:45Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > The William stories had somewhat more grounding in reality than Wooster, though, Richmal Crompton actively providing commentary on events of the day. In one story William’s older brother George and his friends become Bolsheviks and try writing to Stalin, although they are taught a lesson by William and his gang deciding to redistribute their elder brothers’ wealth {and also not being able to find out the postage to Russia}. Rather worse, in _William and the Nasties_, _William and the Nasties_, William and the Outlaws try to emulate what they know of the Nazis by persecuting a Jewish shopkeeper, Mr Isaacs {!}. Presumably this was intended as a satire, but it was badly misjudged and has subsequently been omitted in reprints; I can’t even find a text of it online. It’s ages since I read any of the William books, except in a very few cases. I must either have missed, or completely forgotten, the Stalin / Bolsheviks one. Not doubting you at all – but, not a stunt that I’d have expected from William’s older brother: who struck me as a bit of a Bertie Wooster-ish type himself – very much into mild middle-class fun and extremely innocent relationships with girls, not at all one for striving to make a better world; but maybe I mis-remember. I seem to recall several stories in which, in assorted ways, the Outlaws conclude that the era’s right-wing dictators are cool, and set about aping their antics. I think I did read the _Nasties_ story once; but long, long ago, and I don’t recall details. It must have come about that Richmal’s face was very red, with regard to that one; but hindsight is 20/20 – in the late 1930s, almost no-one dreamt that Nazi Germany’s mistreatment of the Jews would escalate to murder on an industrial scale. And, folk are “people of their times”: eighty-odd years ago, certain things which we now regard as obscenely and vilely wicked, were just part of the general scene and nothing to get het-up about. At various points in Dorothy L. Sayers’s works, there come up “in passing”, what we would now see as hair-raisingly contemptuous / mocking comments about Jewish characters in the books, or black ones on the rare occasions when those feature. I get the picture that Sayers was personally a kindly soul, and a serious Christian – she did not “do” blanket hatred of any category of mankind – she’d have seen what strikes us here as appalling racial / religious bigotry, just as robust fun, not meant in an unkind way. I find myself wondering whether there’s an on-line “Just William” fan group / message board… ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-p-g-wodehouse-query/679179/22 "2014-01-19T22:08:07Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > …In part, my initial post was prompted by something I came across on another board, a while ago: a “crossover fanfic” offering, involving Lord Peter Wimsey, and Bertie Wooster. … > [@Sherrerd](#): > > Good lord; I hope it wasn’t a Slash. This one wasn’t – it was a perfectly decorous offering in the setting of a house-party where the two were guests. However; among the participants on that board, were several keen Slash-fiction exponents – so I’ll bet that there is a Slash version of the tale, by now. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-p-g-wodehouse-query/679179/23 "2014-01-20T02:00:53Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > This one wasn’t – it was a perfectly decorous offering in the setting of a house-party where the two were guests. However; among the participants on that board, were several keen Slash-fiction exponents – so I’ll bet that there is a Slash version of the tale, by now. :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-p-g-wodehouse-query/679179.md?page=1)