»Nicholas

I picked up a copy of Anthea Bell's new translation of Nicholas, the classic illustrated story of a puckish French school-boy. The elegant, cloth-bound Phaidon edition features the charming illustrations by Jean-Jacques Sempe.

Goscinny died in 1977, but both the Nicholas series of books and the phenomenal Asterix comics, produced in collaboration with the devilish Albert Uderzo (whom I met unexpectedly at Hamley's in London), have become classics, in no small part due to Bell's lyrical and humourous translation.