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Mandeville & Spring Books (1949-1955)

The Tom Merry books were written by Charles Hamilton initially under his Gem alter ego Martin Clifford, presumably to emulate the success of the Bunter books published by Charles Skilton.

The Tom Merry (and Jack of All trades and Rookwood) novels were published by Mandeville Publications, who also published the Tom Merry Annuals, and the first three Billy Bunter's Own. Many of the Tom Merry novels were almost immediately reprinted by Spring Books, and later republished under Spring Books "Fanfare" imprint. It is unclear what the relationship was between Mandeville and Spring as the editions had significant differences - the Mandeville editions were printed on better paper, with a frontispiece and illustrations in the text, whereas the Spring reprinted editions originally had no illustrations and a different dust wrapper. The initial Mandeville editions were published at 6 shillings. Later volumes from around 1951 cost 7/6 and were advertised in the pages of the Gold Hawk paperbacks.

Mandeville publications seems to have gone out of business at some point in 1953/1954, at which point Spring Books took over publishing new Tom Merry novels, but with Frank Richards acknowledged as the author.

Spring Books also published a variety of collections of boys' fiction (such as the Big Parade for Boys).

 

1	Tom Merry & Co. of St. Jim’s	Martin Clifford	May 1949 (Spring reprint 1949)
2	The Secret of the Study	Martin Clifford	October 1949 (Spring reprint 1950)
3	Talbot’s Secret	Martin Clifford	1949 (Spring reprint September 1951)
4	Rallying Round Gussy	Martin Clifford	May 1950
6	The Scapegrace of St. Jim’s	Martin Clifford	June 1951 (Spring reprint 1951)
8	Trouble for Tom Merry	Frank Richards	1953 (Spring edition)
9	Down and Out	Frank Richards	1953
10	Cardew’s Catch	Frank Richards	1954
11	The Disappearance of Tom Merry	Frank Richards	1954
13	Tom Merry’s Triumph	Frank Richards	1955
14	Tom Merry & Co. - Caravanners	Frank Richards	1955
15	Through Thick and Thin	Frank Richards	1955
7	The Rivals of Rookwood School	Owen Conquest	September 1951 (Spring reprint 1951)
5	Jack of All Trades	Frank Richards	July 1950
12	Jack’s the Lad	Frank Richards	1954 (Spring edition)
16	Jack of the Circus	Frank Richards	1955

Big Parade For Boys (c. 1959)

This was a hard-back collection of short stories for boys by a wide variety of authors, published by Spring Books (who also published the St. Jims post war novels). A companion volume The Big Parade for Girls was also published.

Page	Title	Author	Source
7	Perkinson’s Promise [Felgate]	Frank Richards	RGBOS 1951
132	Bad Luck for Bundle! A School Story of 1970 [Dolcot]	Frank Richards	TMO 1954
226	Bad Luck for Billy Bunter	Frank Richards	TMO 1951
323	Trouble for Three [Felgate]	Frank Richards	RGBOS 1954
343	Spot of Luck [Felgate]	Frank Richards	RGBOS 1951
374	Sportsman! [Felgate]	Frank Richards	RGBOS 1950

New Target Book For Boys (1960)

Published by Spring Books, this contained a variety of school and adventure stories.

Just Like Bunter

Frank Richards

TMO 1954

Searchlight: Adventure Stories for Boys (c.1960)

This was a hefty (380 pages) story book published by Spring Books that included at least two Charles Hamilton stories.

	Chancing it with Charne [Felgate]	Frank Richards	RGBOS 1950
	Treasure of Temooka [King of the Islands]	Charles Hamilton	BBO 1953

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