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THJE STORY JPAJPJER COJLJLJECTOR N:.��1�:1�:�.4 ···················································································· ···················································································· Research on Modern "Comics" HERE Is Buying Guidance investigators compared the num on almost everything today ber of beats of a comic on a T and the "comic paper" is window sill, before the paper no exception. The boys of became useless. One of the boys Form 2J at Wakefield Cathedral had the use of a fish and chip Secondary School in England shop, where resistance to grease, have put the modern "comic" salt, and vinegar was measured. under the microscope. Their At first I thought that these findings have been published in tests were something entirely Mitre, the school magazine. new, but on examining some of Five boys of thirteen years did the old comics in my collection the research out of school hours, I see that these, too, have ap and most thoroughly did they parently been used for fly-swat go to work. They nominated as ting, and from the food-stains the best comic one which they on some of them they have also found not only best to read, but been tested as table-cloths! also the best for holding fish and I still have in my possession a chips, for fly-swatting, and for frantic letter from a postal mem fire-lighting! ber of the Northern Section The winning comic-unfortu [Old Boys' Book Club] library nately the name is not given in telling me that his wife had lit the report-took 66 minutes, 38 the fire with a Magnet from the seconds to read, against 9 min Secret Society series. (It took utes, 42 seconds for the "poorest two years to replace the copy.) buy." Verily, there is nothing new un In the fly-swatting test, the der the sun! - GERRY ALLISON ···················································································· ..................................................................................... .. The First School Story in a Boys' Weekly The Young ; Englishman s Journal, Number 8, June 8th, 1867. Temple Pub. Co. The Boys of B!rcham School, by org Emmett, lllu trat d by Harry Ma.guire (Why did W. L. Emmett accept a title block with reversed N's?) (See S.P.C. 79, page 52) lT WAS INTENDED that a reproduction of a Victorian paper should accompany three of the four parts of Tom Hopper ton's article, Digging Round the Roots. However, having placed the copies of the papers in the hands of a photo grapher, Mr. Hopperton had difficulty in obtaining the prints and they only became available in time for this issue. 114 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR • No.82 Vol.4 DIGGING ROUND THE ROOTS By TOM HOPPERTON HE TOTAL NUMBER of stories Sampson, Low & Co. were pub was now becoming formi lishing Henty's Union Jack they T dable, although only Tal had only one school tale in the bot Baines Reed's contri 70-odd books they issued. The butions to The Boy's Own Paper R. T. S. for a long time confined -The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's themselves to Reed's works, and and The Cock House at Felsgarth when Sampson, Low had an -have weathered the storms of other go at the juvenile market time. Their impact was cumu in 1892 with Boys their book lative rather than immediate. list had risen to over 100 with Harcourt Burrage long outwrote Reed's Roger Ingleton Mi nor still and outsold Reed, and if he had standing alone. More represen happened to be backed by The tative for our purpose were Religious Tract Society instead the two firms reprinting weekly of more ephemeral publishers, serials, Hogarth House with five I feel that he would not have school stories out of 54, and been sub merged in unjustified Edwin J. Brett, whose 1900 list obscurity. He began with Em had 21 of them to 22 historical mett and lived long enough to tales and 45 general adventure be adopted as a sort of pet by yarns. Hamilton Edwards in The Boys' With the turn of the century, Realm, but from Charley and Tim the climb began. One reason at Scarem School in his early days must have been the improve down to The Lambs of Littlecote ment in the stories. There is and The Island School, which not a lot to choose between, seems to have \ieen the Aldine say, the first Boys of England Company's swan-song in num serial, Alone in the Pirate's Lair, ber publishing, it is hardly pos and Henry St. John's In Nelson's sible to go wrong in dipping Day, and it would be difficult into his vast output. to date such storil!s accurately Book publishers were still from the internal evidence. Thi s chary of the school story. When would not apply in general to i1M111111mt:11m1111111t:1n11u11111c1111u11111111:111111111111t:11110rn111t:11:111111111c:111u1111u11 p ART FOUR i1011111a111i111111111111ci111111111111t�•111111111111111:11111mrn1111111111m11�11111n1111111n111111c 116 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR the school story. There were he feel sufficiently close to St. naturally exceptions. The King of Basil's and the rest to consider the School has been mentioned himself a possible and not in as capable of passing muster for congruous entrant and so begin many more years : at the other the process of personal associa extreme, Horace Phillips' Cast tion which led thousands upon Out by the School was poor ham· thousands to enrol themselves my stuff which might well have as devoted supernumeraries at been written twenty-five years St. Jim's and Greyfriars? It seems before it was. But speaking to be at least feasible. broadly, there was a quite dis· For precisely the same reason proportionate improvement in that the boys' thoughts were the polish of the school story being moulded in this direction, over a similar period, and no the publishing opportunities one could confuse the dates of were then broadening beyond The Boys of Bircham School and the recognition of the pioneers, Goodwin's Cad of St. Carton's and the last foundation stone ( 1895 and utilising a scholarship was laid by the striking expan boy). sion of The Amalgamated Press. The Harmsworths founded HIS ADDED GLOSS of sophisti· what became The Amalgamated T cation must have swelled Press just as the full effectof the the popularity, but was 1871 Education Act was being there another factor, something felt. The population was ex in the minds of the boys them panding rapidly and illiteracy selves? The youngster of 1867 reducing to a negligible percen did not need to be told th at tage, so that the greatest mass life is real, life is earnest. His market ever lapped up their pro short schooling and the im liferating publications. Up to minence of some sort of job then, a writer specialising in made the boarding school a school stories had been un vague dream, remote and unat· thinkable: it was practically im tainable. The popularity of Rags possible, in fact, for even the to Riches fables probably re most versatile to confine himself flected his immediate interests. exclusively to boys' papers if he The better-educated boy of the hoped to make a living. The opening years of the twentieth purely boys' writer now became century was held back longer a fact, and if people like Michael from the labour market by the Storm, Henry St.John, and David increased school-leaving age. Did Goodwin continued to accept Tom Merry at the Helm The British Boys' Paper, Number 22, July 28th, 1888. Al dine Tom Merry's Schooldays, by George Emmett (It doesn't show in the reproduc tion, but the heel of the page bears the legend: "New Boys' Paper, No. 96, Vol. II, The British Boys' Paper, No. 22, Vol. l") (See S.P.C. 79, page 52, where it is called British Boys' Journal) I adult work it was perhaps more of Beeton's Boys' Own Journal, and from choice than from necessity. Boys of England set a formula for Even so, the school story spe its rivals and successors which cialist of any output could not was still adhered to by the A. P.'s have developed without another highly successful Boys' Friend, change, this time in the weeklies Boys' Realm, and Boys' Herald. themselves. They had been This make-up relied on three, mixed papers right from the days four, or five serials to form the 117 118 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR body of the paper, and was in of it. The Qem Library was con evitably a brake on the progress ceived as a mixed weekly and as of the school tale. The editors, such gave no indication that fearful of unbalancing their pro it could have outlasted Trapps gramme, would not at best ad Holrnes' Vanguard Library or mit more than one at a time, so Henderson's Nuggets. Torn Mer the schoolboy remained a pic ry was to be an intermittent colo drowned by the trumpets, performer and (said he sinking trombones, and bass drums of his voice to a whisper) there highwaymen, pirates, and adven was nothing extraordinary about turers. The libraries altered all the Clavering stories and the this. bud certainly did not foresha dow the flower. What did make ENNY LIBRARIES had flourished The Qem was Griffiths' decision P from about 1840 and, as they to transport the Terrible Three were complete, undated, and to St. Jim's, a removal effected always vendible, they were pro against the author's inclination bably a better publishing risk and one which was to give than the perishable weekly jour the stories a unique structure. nal. Brett, Charles Fox, Hogarth Chance created the opportunity, House, and even that crow of ill and Charles Hamilton was pre omen Guy Rayner had run long eminently the author to make and successful series, which still, the most of it.