Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School

by Frank Richards

Abridged 3 CD Audio Book Set

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Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School - by Frank Richards - Audio Book CD  

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About Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School

In the 1930s the Bunter stories in the Magnet became so popular that parcels of 'tuck' would arrive at the magazine's offices for the ever hungry 'fat owl of the Remove'.

In the 1950s, a very successful TV series with Gerald Campion revived Bunter's popularity again and in the 21st century this enduring fellow looks set for another return, recently celebrating the 100th birthday of Bunter's first appearance in The Magnet Magazine.

Billy Bunter is up to no good, falling asleep in class, stealing jam and cake from other boys' lockers, chalking rude things on the blackboard, getting six of the best from Mr. Quelch, failing to turn up for cricket, scuffling with the local vagrant, Nosey Jenkins, being threatened with expulsion, and will he be redeemed by his final adventure? A great fun CD for every child from 6 - 90+ !

About Frank Richards (Charles Hamilton)

Early life and career - 1876-1906

Hamilton was born in Ealing, London to a family of eight children. He began a career as a writer of fiction having his first story accepted almost immediately. Over the following years he was to establish himself as the main writer with the publisher, Trapps Holmes, providing several thousand stories on a range of subjects including police, detectives, firefighters, Westerns as well as school stories. In 1906 he started to write for the Amalgamated Press and although he continued to have stories published for Trapps Holmes until 1915 (many of which were reprints), his allegiance was gradually to move.

Heyday – 1907-1940

Amalgamated Press started a new story paper for boys called The Gem in 1907 and by issue number 11 it had established a format – the major content was to be a story about St Jim’s school, starring Tom Merry as the main character and written by Charles Hamilton under the pen name of Martin Clifford. This paper rapidly established itself and anxious to capitalize on its success, a similar venture was launched in 1908. This was to be known as The Magnet, the subject matter was a school called Greyfriars and Hamilton was again to be the author, this time using the name Frank Richards.

In 1915, Hamilton started a third school for Amalgamated Press, Rookwood, this time under the name Owen Conquest and featuring a leading character called Jimmy Silver. These appeared as part of the Boys' Friend Weekly publication and were shorter than the Greyfriars and St Jim’s stories.

These three schools were to absorb most of Hamilton’s efforts over the next three decades and constitute the work for which he is best remembered. In the early days of this period, the St Jim’s stories were more involved and more popular. The Greyfriars stories however, evolved gradually over the early years of the Magnet, eventually becoming Hamilton’s main priority. In all he provided stories for 82% of the issues of The Magnet compared with two thirds of the issues of the Gem. If a Hamilton story was not available, the story was provided by another author but still using the Clifford or Richards name .

The Gem carried on until December 1939 and by then the circulation of the Magnet had also declined. With England facing a paper shortage the closure of the paper was inevitable and this came about in 1940.

Late career – 1940-1961

Following the closure of The Magnet in 1940, Hamilton had little work but he became known as the author of the stories following a newspaper interview he gave to the London Evening Standard. He was not however able to continue the Greyfriars saga as Amalgamated Press held the copyright and would not release it.

In the event he was obliged to create new schools such as Carcroft and Sparshott, as well as trying the romance genre under the name of Winston Cardew. By 1946 however, he had received permission to write Greyfriars stories again and obtained a contract from publishers Charles Skilton for a hardback series the first volume of which, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, was published in September 1947. The series was to continue for the rest of his life, the publisher later changing to Cassells. In addition, he wrote further St Jim’s, Rookwood and Cliff House stories, as well as the television script for seven series of Billy Bunter stories for the BBC.

He died on 24 December 1961, aged 86.

Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School - by Frank Richards - Audio Book CD