Firing the youthful imagination

I must first declare an interest, now almost subliminal, in the subject of this vast, comprehensive, polymorphous and wholly captivating book. I was six when the war broke out and 12 when it ended. I read a lot of the books described new, as well as many more that were older. I remember the Magnet, best of comics, closed when the Amalgamated Press ran short of paper; we had to make do with the Dandy and Beano, published by D. C. Thomson of Dundee. George Orwell was less sorry. In ‘Boys’ Weeklies’, published in Horizon in March 1940, he asserted that comics preserved the ruling class attitudes of 1910. ‘The stories in the Magnet are signed “Frank Richards”, but a series lasting 30 years could hardly be the work of the same person every week.’ To his great surprise, the real ‘Frank Richards’ wrote to protest and assert his individuality as the author of 1,380 Greyfriars School stories, Billy Bunter and all.