 | About The Boys' Realm Football Library 1909
See below for the history of this magazine
The Boys' Realm Football Library
This was a very important publication in the evolution of the football magazine. According to Adam Riches in his excellent book "Football's Comic Book Heroes the children's market "The Boys' Realm" eventually in 1909 finally produced its first football exclusive publication, The Boys Realm's Football Library". This was very much a paper aimed at children and was predominantly short stories.
The Boys' Realm Football and Sports library was published by the Amalgamated Press and ran for 299 issues between the 18th September 1909 and 5th June 1915 before being replaced by the Nelson Lee.
Editors John Nix Pentalow,Prices 1d/,Pagecounts 20pp,Frequency weekly.
The first 56 issues contained two stories. The main story was a Charles Hamilton creation and featured Jack Noble of Pelham School. (More about Charles Hamilton later).The secondary story featured the Blue crusaders and was by A. S. Hardy. In issue 57 the two series were amalgamated with Jack Noble joining the Blue Crusaders before gradually fading out.
Charles Hamilton (better known as Frank Richards of Billy Bunter fame)
Charles Hamilton only wrote a few issues (Issue 1, issue 12 and possibly a few others) of The Boys Realm's Football Library before the subs, many of them famous in their own right took over.
Over the years, it has become clear just how prolific Hamilton was as an author, he is estimated to have written about 100 million words in his lifetime. Most people have only heard of Frank Richards. However, his output was enormous. He would create a pen-name under which to write each school series. Those known to date are:
Michael Blake, Gillingham Jones, Winston Cardew, T. Harcourt Llewelyn, Martin Clifford, Clifford Owen, Harry Clifton, Ralph Redway, Clifford Clive, Ridley Redway, Sir Alan Cobham, Frank Richards, Owen Conquest, Hilda Richards, Gordon Conway, Raleigh Robbins, Frank Drake, Robert Rogers, Freeman Fox, Eric Stanhope, Hamilton Greening, Robert Stanley, Cecil Herbert, Peter Todd, Prosper Howard,Nigel Wallace, Robert Jennings, Talbot Wynyard.
References: Men Behind Boys' Fiction - With acknowledgements to the late Bill Lofts.
About Sport for Boys.
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