The protagonist, Charley Brown, is a lively, inventive boy who, as a stranger (an evacuee in the early days of the Second World War), is beset by constant challenges, hostility and complications. One of his first deeds is to let loose the local bull. Boys who one minute had taunted him with the refrain 'Ballocky baldy' (Charley's lice had been evacuated from London with him), were the next minute acknowledging him as their natural leader. Charley Brown, one of Joyce Cary's most memorable creations, is a figure of contrasts, aesthete and delinquent, leading his gang into daring acts both grand and bad. As his sweetheart, Lizzie Galor rightly puts it, he's every bit as good as the movies ...On first publication it was praised as 'a brilliant story' ("News Chronicle"), a 'patient and penetrating analysis of children's minds' ("The Times"), and as 'splendid entertainment as well as an electrifying revelation of the young idea' ("Observer").
- ISBN10 0571253830
- ISBN13 9780571253838
- Publish Date 20 August 2009 (first published 1 March 1963)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 24 January 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 344
- Language English