Professor Branestawm is a series of thirteen books written by the English author Norman Hunter

Norman Hunter (author)

Norman George Lorimer Hunter was a British children's author, best known for his novels' character Professor Branestawm.-Career:Hunter wrote popular books on writing for advertising, brain-teasers and conjuring among many others...

. Written over a 50 year period, between 1933 and 1983, the children's books

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 feature as protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

 the eponymous inventor, Professor Theophilus Branestawm, who is depicted throughout the books as the archetypal absent-minded professor

Absent-minded professor

The absent-minded professor is a stock character of popular fiction, usually portrayed as a talented academic whose focus on academic matters leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings....

. The name "Branestawm" is a pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

, as a homophone

Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...

 of the word "brainstorm

Brainstorm

Brainstorm generally refers to brainstorming, a group or individual creativity exercise.Brainstorm may also refer to:-Film:* Brainstorm , directed by Douglas Trumbull* Brainstorm , directed by William Conrad...

".

The first two books in the series were originally published in the 1930s, with the other 11 books published much later from 1970, during Hunter's retirement. As such, there is a 33 year gap between the publication of Hunter's second Branestawm novel, Professor Branestawm's Treasure Hunt (1937), and his third, The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm (1970).

Characters

Professor Branestawm is always at work in his "Inventory" creating bizarre inventions, all of which either malfunction or work in unanticipated ways, and which lead him into incredible adventures, often accompanied by his friend Colonel Dedshott of the Catapult Cavaliers, and his housekeeper Mrs Flittersnoop. He lives in Great Pagwell, which is apparently surrounded by other Pagwells (Little Pagwell, Pagwell Heights, Pagwell Gardens etc.). In "The Professor Borrows a Book", he manages to lose fourteen different copies of the same book from fourteen different public libraries, and has to cycle frantically between fourteen different Pagwells to renew his books to avoid being fined.

The Professor is described in the first book as having, like all great men, simple tastes: "His coat was simply fastened with safety pins because the buttons had simply fallen off. His head was simply bald and it simply shone like anything when the sun caught it." He has five pairs of spectacles – one for reading, one for writing, one for out of doors, one for looking at you over the top of and a fifth pair for looking for the others on the frequent occasions when they get lost. Other pairs of spectacles are often mentioned.

Mrs Flittersnoop, his housekeeper, causes trouble a few times through her lack of understanding for the Professor's genius. In "The Wild Waste Paper", she throws what seems to be a bottle of cough medicine into the waste bin. The liquid turns out to be the Professor's elixir of life

Elixir of life

The elixir of life, also known as the elixir of immortality and sometimes equated with the philosopher's stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life and or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it. The elixir of life was also said to be able to create...

, which was in the bottle because cough medicine is the only thing that can stop the stuff dead without actually destroying it. Since the bottle was uncorked to allow air in (nothing can live without air), the waste paper in the bin comes to life. Even when stuck up a pear tree surrounded by giant, predatory bits of waste paper, the Professor retains his scientific detachment, wondering if a carpenter's bill would know a saw if it saw one, and if so, whether the gas bill might explode at any moment.

The names of other characters in the books, like the Professor's, are puns:

• Mrs Flittersnoop - the Professor's housekeeper
• Colonel Dedshott - his best friend
• General Shatterfortz - the Colonel's commanding officer
• Commander Hardaport (Retired) - a neighbour of the Professor's
• Mr Chintzbitz - a friend of the Colonel's who owns a furniture shop
• Dr Mumpzanmeasle - the local doctor

Plot devices

Many of the Professor's perils result from simple absent-mindedness. In "The Screaming Clocks", he invents a clock that doesn't need winding up, but the omission of an important component ("I forgot to put a little wiggly thing in") means the clock doesn't stop at twelve but continues striking thirteen, fourteen and so forth until it can't keep up with itself. In "Burglars!", the Professor invents an automatic burglar catcher, but forgets his house key, tries to get in the window and is grabbed and trussed up by his own machine so thoroughly that even Mrs Flittersnoop fails to recognise him, and bashes him over the head for good measure.

Many of the troubles that the professor experiences are the result of his inventions rebelling, showing anthropomorphic personalities. For instance, the phrase "No Branestawm invention was going to stand for that" occurs several times in the series. Branestawm inventions frequently object to anyone using them in ways that they were not designed for. For instance, in a story about the Professor making cuckoo clocks for all his friends, a fight broke out between the clocks, resulting in the destruction of all of them.

Illustrators

The first book featuring Professor Branestawm was The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, first published in 1933 and illustrated by W. Heath Robinson

W. Heath Robinson

William Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for drawings of eccentric machines....

. Heath Robinson was famous for his rickety contraptions, and the illustrations were a perfect foil to the outlandish plots of these short stories, each picture typically featuring the professor's unfeasibly large forehead. The original book contained a section called seventy-six illustrations by W. Heath Robinson, each with evocative titles such as A telescope of his own invention or With nothing on at all but a big smile (referring to a picture of an extra specially young professor).

The sequel was Professor Branestawm's Treasure Hunt, published 1937. The first edition was illustrated by James Arnold

James Arnold (author & artist)

James Arnold was an English commercial artist who developed a passion for the wagons that he saw on his cycling tours of the countryside in the pre- and post-War years...

 with George Worsley Adamson

George Worsley Adamson

George Worsley Adamson was a book illustrator, author and cartoonist who from 1931 held American and British dual citizenship....

 substituted for the 1966 editions.

Books in the series

• The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm (1933)
• Professor Branestawm's Treasure Hunt (1937)
• The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm (1970)
• Professor Branestawm Up the Pole (1972)
• Professor Branestawm's Great Revolution (1974)
• Professor Branestawm Round the Bend (1977)
• Professor Branestawm's Perilous Pudding (1979)
• Professor Branestawm and the Wild Letters (1981)
• Professor Branestawm's Pocket Motor Car (1981)
• Professor Branestawm's Mouse War (1982)
• Professor Branestawm's Building Bust-Up (1982)
• Professor Branestawm's Crunchy Crockery (1983)
• Professor Branestawm's Hair-Raising Idea (1983)

The following books by Norman Hunter also appear in the British Library catalogue
Professor Branestawm’s compendium of conundrums, riddles, puzzles, brain twiddlers and dotty descriptions (1975)
Professor Branestawm’s do-it-yourself handbook (1976)
Professor Branestawm stories (2000, c1980)
The best of Branestawm (1980)

Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 adapted the first two books into episodes of a television sitcom, entitled The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm.