THE JACK BOOKS

The first two volumes in the publishing project that will see all eight Jack books, and a supplementary volume containing the short stories, begins with the first and fifth volumes in the 'Saga'. My grateful thanks to Gyles Brandreth who wrote the following wonderful Foreword to these volumes.

FOREWORD by GYLES BRANDRETH

 Frank Richards is said by some to be the most prolific writer the world has ever known. In a career that lasted longer than the reign of Queen Victoria, the undisputed Master of the schoolboy saga wrote more than seven thousand stories under at least twenty-eight pen names. From Latin verses to cowboy adventures, from melodramas to romances, from thrillers to television scripts, his published writings run towards a hundred million words. At the age of thirty, he was completing the equivalent of a novel a week. At the age of eighty, he was still producing a quarter of a million words a year. The outputfulness was terrific!

Frank Richards’ real name was Charles Harold St John Hamilton. He was born at 15 Oak Street, Ealing, Middlesex, on 8 August 1876. He died on 24 December 1961 at Rose Lawn, Kingsgate, Kent. He has been part of my life since I was a small boy. In the 1950s, like so many others, I was introduced to his genius through the actor Gerald Campion, who, for our generation, immortalised Billy Bunter through his portrayal of the character on television. I saw the Campion Bunter on television; then I discovered Frank Richards’ Bunter novels; then I graduated to “the real thing”: the great Greyfriars stories that featured in The Magnet over so many years. I was hooked. Frank Richards is a writer who creates a world and keeps you there. Before I was ten years of age, I was already a Frank Richards obsessive. Because as a family we took our summer holidays in Broadstairs, Kent, which adjoins Kingsgate on the Isle of Thanet coast, as a boy I used to stake out Rose Lawn in the hope of catching glimpses of my hero opening and closing his front door. I saw him more than once, but we never spoke.

As the years went by, my interest in Richards’ work became more profound – and professional. I began to collect his work. I interviewed Gerald Campion. I met Hamilton’s niece, Una Hamilton-Wright. I began to explore his work beyond the confines of Greyfriars School and St Jim’s. I made two radio programmes about him and, in 1976, I produced a book entitled Yarooh! and subtitled, A Feast of Frank Richards. I like to think the book, published by Eyre Methuen, lived up to the promise of its subtitle. [It most certainly does! Ed.] It contained many gems (including a glorious Sherlock Holmes spoof and a Latin version of Waltzing Matilda), much Bunter material (predictably), but only one story in the master’s masterly series of tales featuring Jack of All Trades.

The Jack stories are Hamilton’s hidden treasure. The series comprises eight books and several short stories. They were originally written under Hamilton/Richards’ Martin Clifford pseudonym and, in the volume that you are holding now, the great Peter McCall – who has been to Frank Richards’ work what the Duke of Wellington was at Waterloo: all-conquering, but intelligently and sensitively so – is producing the ultimate ‘Jack’ collection.

The publication of these stories is a worthy commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the great man’s death. To whet the appetite, the first to be re-published is the opening ‘chapter’ in the series, Jack of All Trades. Its companion volume is Jack Goes South – number five in the saga. Soon, you will be able to follow Jack through all his adventures and vicissitudes.

This is not just Jack for our time: it is Jack for all time. This is the best of the best. You are in for a treat. Sit back and enjoy.

Editorial Note on Authorship

I would not presume to argue with Gyles Brandreth’s assertion that the Jack Books were originally published under the pen-name Martin Clifford. However, all the manuscripts of the full-length stories have the title heading followed by the words ‘by Frank Richards’ – all typed on the author’s trusty Remington! (See below.)

My suspicion is that Jack Takes Over, starring Gussy D’Arcy of St. Jim’s College, was published in Tom Merry’s Own and credited to Martin Clifford rather than Frank Richards because it was as the former that Hamilton wrote the St Jim’s stories; this hypothesis holds water if the publication of Tom Merry’s Own preceded that of Jack of All Trades.

All the other short stories are attributed to ‘Frank Richards’ (as is my copy of Jack Takes Over).

Preface

At last the long-awaited Jack books are seeing the light of day! Of the eight stories written, only three were published in the 1950s.

The remainder have lain, gathering dust, in manuscript form for over half a century. Now, thanks to Penny Tweedie, Charles Hamilton’s Great-Niece, we have the privilege of reading the rest. There is, however, one caveat: the manuscript of volume 4 has lain in the agent’s files for the best part of twenty years. Efforts are continuing to obtain this.

The intention is to publish all eight volumes, in matching format, at the rate of two every six months. The objective is to print one old story and one new with each of the first three publishings – followed, finally, by the remaining two books. These will build into an impressive eight-volume mini-library worthy of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary, on the 24th December 2011, of the death of Charles Hamilton.

The work involved is greater even than I had anticipated! The 60 year-old typescript was composed on Hamilton’s faithful Remington, which, by the time of writing Jack, had seen thirty years of service and, by now, had produced 30,000,000 words! As a result, many characters are solid purple blobs! Could it be ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘o’, ‘s’, ‘u’, or even ‘v’? What amazed me was the software I used in the production of the books got so much correct – rather than how much was errant! Even worse was deciding between question marks and exclamation marks; their similarity is astonishing! I was asked how long each book would take to compile. My response was it would require about ten hours per page of foolscap manuscript; a ‘guesstimate’ that was not far from accurate!

As is the case with any editor, his gratitude and thanks go to many people too many to name. The main credit goes to ‘The man himself’, Charles Hamilton, for his indefatigable work. ‘The fault[s], dear Brutus, lie not in our stars but in ourselves’ – (in other words, me!).

Finally, my thanks go to Penny Tweedie and Felicity Wright-Hewson, Hamilton’s literary executrices for their permission to publish this important lacuna in the Hamilton canon; as well as much help from Penny and her husband, Neil.

Enjoy this feast of Edwardian England and Her Empire from the early days of the Twentieth Century – although written in the dark days of the Second Word War. If you enjoy these books in the reading as much as I have in their preparation, the effort of all involved can never be said to have been wasted!

                                                                              Peter McCall