Sherlock Holmes and the Greyfriars School Mystery

Rating:
Summary: The Bunter Universe!
Review: Beginning sometime before WWI, British schoolboys waited for the next weekly issue of various "Boys' periodicals" such as THE MAGNET and THE GEM, in hopes it would contain the latest adventures of Billy Bunter and the Famous Five at Greyfriars School. New Bunter books were being issued 50 years later, as copies in my collection indicate, and as far as I know they are still coming out nearly a century later. As Val Andrews says in his dedication of the present volume, Frank Richards' "incredible output of brilliant School stories gave many a working-class boy a public-school education." Indeed!

In the present volume, set circa 1912, Watson gets his retired friend Holmes to tackle a seemingly minor mystery. The manuscript of a history of Greyfriars School has vanished. Is it genuine theft, a prank, or the work of a malicious student... or the tip of something far more serious? We learn that Watson himself was educated at Greyfriars (!), and all the beloved Richards characters, Bunter, the Famous Five, the evil-tempered Mr Quelch, and the vile bully Horace Coker [no relation, I hope, to your own humble scribe, whose meek and saintly aspect is justly famed!], make brief walk-on appearances.

The mystery is soon solved (the book barely runs 100 pages), and the main attraction here is nostalgic. If you're a Bunter fan, or have always wondered who the heck he is, you might give this one a try.

Rating:
Summary: The Bunter Universe!
Review: Beginning sometime before WWI, British schoolboys waited for the next weekly issue of various "Boys' periodicals" such as THE MAGNET and THE GEM, in hopes it would contain the latest adventures of Billy Bunter and the Famous Five at Greyfriars School. New Bunter books were being issued 50 years later, as copies in my collection indicate, and as far as I know they are still coming out nearly a century later. As Val Andrews says in his dedication of the present volume, Frank Richards' "incredible output of brilliant School stories gave many a working-class boy a public-school education." Indeed!

In the present volume, set circa 1912, Watson gets his retired friend Holmes to tackle a seemingly minor mystery. The manuscript of a history of Greyfriars School has vanished. Is it genuine theft, a prank, or the work of a malicious student... or the tip of something far more serious? We learn that Watson himself was educated at Greyfriars (!), and all the beloved Richards characters, Bunter, the Famous Five, the evil-tempered Mr Quelch, and the vile bully Horace Coker [no relation, I hope, to your own humble scribe, whose meek and saintly aspect is justly famed!], make brief walk-on appearances.

The mystery is soon solved (the book barely runs 100 pages), and the main attraction here is nostalgic. If you're a Bunter fan, or have always wondered who the heck he is, you might give this one a try.