Molesworth

The chokingly hilarious satire on prep school life, as chronicled in the dangerous diaries of one Nigel Molesworth

Nigel Molesworth, the terror of fictional St. Custards prep school, pontificated hilariously and world-wearily on his skool dayz in four books first published in the 1950 Down with Skool, How to be Top, Whizz for Atomms, and Back in the Jug Agane . Magnificently illustrated by Ronald Searle, the Molesworth tetralogy creates a picture of school life that may be unsurpassed in its utterly sublime hilarity and seriously bad spelling. Molesworth holds forth on such timeless topics as Christmas, The French, Journalism, Latin, and Gurls. In fact, he is a tireless and confident commentator on almost any topic. Sports : "It is a funy thing tho, your side always gets beaten whichever skool you are at. That is like life I suppose." "Poetry is sissy stuff that rhymes. Weedy people say la and fie and swoon when they see a bunch of daffodils." "History started badly and hav been getting steadily worse."

Hogwarts this isn't, although the name most certainly comes from The Hogwarts , a Latin play by Marcus Plautus Molesworthus. Rupert Grint of the Harry Potter movies recently played Molesworth in BBC Radio's Down with Skool. Wildly funny and full of sharp observations on life, Molesworth "contanes the full lowdown on skools, swots, snekes, cads, prigs, bulies, headmasters, foopball, weeds, and various other chizzes-in fact THE LOT ."