Chums

[Paul Cray]

Frank Richards in the Greyfriars/Billy Bunter stories (
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Greyfriars) that appeared
in "The Magnet" (1908-40) often refers to the Famous Five (Harry Wharton
and his four fast friends) as "chums". See, natch, Orwell's essay "Boys'
Weeklies" (
http://www.friardale.co.uk/Ephemera/Newspapers/George%20Orwell_Horizon.pdf).
Richards's work is the acme of the vast body of early C20th popular British
boys' fiction, although whether TRP would have been likely to have come
across much of it in 1940s Long Island is another matter.

On 20 April 2018 at 11:59, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps his house had them there ANNUALS!?
>
> Great find.
>
> On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 6:35 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > First I've read of CHUMS.
> > Thanks
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 6:03 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Another secondary literature question for your collective memory. Much
> > has
> > > been written about the Chums of Chance but I don't remember if anyone
> has
> > > found a firm source for the name. Folks have compared the CoC to
> > exemplars
> > > of the genre, that is true.
> > >
> > > Well, the other day while cooking I was listening to (and occasionally
> > > glancing at) a BBC documentary series called Empire, it was Episode 3
> > > "Playing the Game". In that episode it discusses British Empire and
> > > colonialism in India and elsewhere, and it mentions the literature of
> > > Empire (not Kipling and all that, but the popular press). At around 38
> > > minute mark it shows a fine assortment of examples one of which is held
> > up
> > > and is called: "Chums". Good image at 38:39.
> > >
> > > Turns out their is a Wikipedia entry. (If this is old news, just
> consider
> > > me slow and not much of a learner). You might look at this collector's
> > page
> > > also: http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/chums.html
> > > The serial stopped publishing in '41 when TP was just a kid. Perhaps
> > there
> > > were some in the house growing up.
> > >
> > > In light of this it makes some reviews look pretty clueless. For
> example,
> > > when Salon's Laura Miller wrote, "The Chums of Chance (as if that name
> > > weren't bad enough)" I guess she thought it pretty clever. Doesn't seem
> > > clever.
> > >
> > > ciao
> > > mc
> > > --
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> > --
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> >
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>