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Charles Hamilton (writer) |
Charles Harold St. John Hamilton (August 8, 1876 – December 24, 1961), also known as Frank Richards, was an English children's-book author.
Born in Ealing, he is listed in Guinness World Records as the most prolific author of all time with a lifetime output calculated at 72-75 million words.[1] Hamilton was so prolific that his work was famously judged to be that of several authors following a formula by George Orwell in his essay Boys' Weeklies.[2]
Much of his work was published in the weekly boys' papers of the time, and at times he was writing at least six stories each week, using over twenty different pen-names.[3]
He is most famous for his work as Frank Richards for the weekly story paper The Magnet, but he also wrote weekly tales of Tom Merry and Co. of St Jim's for The Gem (as Martin Clifford), Jimmy Silver and Co. of Rookwood School for The Boys Friend Weekly and of the Rio Kid in The Popular (as Ralph Redway), and Bessie Bunter of Cliff House for The School Friend (as Hilda Richards, supposedly Frank Richards' sister, though "Hilda" only wrote 6 issues of that paper). Also Jack Nobody/Jack Free in Spring Books: "Jack's the Lad" and "Jack of the Circus".
His most famous creation is Billy Bunter, who featured in stories set in Greyfriars School. The Billy Bunter stories were serialised in The Magnet from 1908 until the paper shortage during World War II ended its publication in 1940. After World War II Hamilton wrote a number of Bunter books, which were published by Charles Skilton and Cassell. He also wrote the scripts for the BBC's Billy Bunter television series starring Gerald Campion, which ran from 1951 to 1961.
In the 1970s Howard Baker began to publish facsimiles of every issue of The Magnet; he fell just short of completing the series at the time of his death in 1991.
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Under the pen name of Martin Clifford, Charles Hamilton wrote of the (fictitious) school days of Frank Richards, author of the Greyfriars stories, in the Wild West for the Boys' Friend Weekly from 1917 until 1921.
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There is an Illustrated Billy Bunter Story to read online Billy Bunters Blow Out From the Valiant Annual 1969 at [2]
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