YMMV / Just William

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Violet Elizabeth Bott is absent from most of the stories (and doesn't get introduced at all till the fifth book in the series) but is almost certainly the best known character other than William himself.
• First Instalment Wins: The first book is easily the most popular and the only one most people could name. Many people aren't even aware that there are 38 more after that.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Everything about the story "William And The Nasties", to the point that it was removed from all prints of the book it originally appeared in (William The Detective) from 1986 onward. To recap: having heard about how "the Nasties" and their leader "Her Hitler" have recently risen to power in Germany, and too young to fully understand the implications, the Outlaws form their own group of "Nasties" and plan to rob a local Jewish sweet-shop owner (though when it comes to it, a) they do start to realise what they are doing is wrong, and b) as luck has it, there's already a robbery in progress at the shop, which the boys inadvertently foil and earn the owner's lasting gratitude). One can only hope that the boys came to understand the truth of what they had planned when World War II broke out just a few years later. (And as if that wasn't bad enough, Mr. Isaacs is portrayed as having a German accent, making it highly likely he was driven from his home country by the actual Nazis.)
• I Am Not Shazam: Just William is merely the title of the first book in the series; nearly every book is titled using the formulation "___ William", "William the ___" or "William and ___". The term is however frequently used casually to refer to the series as a whole, including here on TV Tropes, though it should really be known simply as the William series. More peculiarly, it is sometimes applied in media to the main character (e.g. "...a classic child hero in the mould of Harry Potter, Charlie Bucket or Just William") as if it were his name. It is, in fact, the perfectly serviceable William Brown.
• Retroactive Recognition: The 2010 BBC One adaptation of Just William had Lily James as Ethel Brown in her very first onscreen role before Downton Abbey and Cinderella (2015).

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