Tom Merry
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Tom Merry was a character created by Charles Hamilton under the pseudonym of Martin Clifford (more commonly known as Frank Richards the creator of Billy Bunter) and he wrote stories for over thirty years about Tom Merry of St. Jim's in the boy’s weekly paper called the Gem which was launched in 1907.
There were 1705 issues of the Gem published; 404 were reprints of previous stories, thus a total of 1301 stories in all. The genuine Martin Clifford stories amounted to approximately 830. Later when the Gem had long since gone, due to paper shortages bought on by the Second World War, and falling sales, he continued writing books about Tom Merry these were published by Spring Books from about 1949 and also Mandeville from the 1950s. There were 13 books in all and the books re-introduce characters that appeared in the Gem in pre-war days – Tom Merry, Manners, Lowther of the Shell and Jack Blake, Herries and Dig and not forgetting the immortal Arthur Augustus D’Arcy of Study No.6.
St. Jim’s stories were published in six Tom Merry Annuals published by Mandeville from 1949 to 1954.
Eleven Tom Merry stories were published in the 1950's by Gold Hawk in paperback form and these are much sought after by collectors today.
In the 1970s Howard Baker published 20 Gem Volumes most in facsimile form apart from Volume 4; Tom Merry and the Night Raiders and Volume 5; The Boy’s of St. Jim’s, which were reproduced in a "conventional book style" Howard Baker also published some Gem Facsimiles in the Greyfriars Book Club these were intended for collectors and were nicely bound in green with gilt edges and supplied in a slip case and limited in the number published to 400 copies.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- 1. The “Tom Merry” & “Jack” Books by Alex Kernaghan an article published in the Book and Magazine Collector (August 1988).
- 2. The World of Frank Richards by W. O. Lofts and D. J. Adley
