Although the stories are focused on the Remove (or lower fourth form), whose most famous pupil was Billy Bunter, other characters also featured on a regular basis.

Time is frozen in the Greyfriars stories; although the reader sees the passing of the seasons, the characters' ages do not change and they remain in the same year groups.

The school lies on the fictional river Sark, upstream of the nearby village of Friardale and downstream of the market town of Courtfield.

As the stories developed, the time would come when plot conflicts would arise naturally from the minutely detailed characters that were fleshed out over the years.

[1] The school is supervised by a Board of Governors, whose members include the short-tempered local landowner, Sir Hilton Popper, as well as Colonel Wharton and Major Cherry, both relatives of prominent characters in the Greyfriars Remove (Lower Fourth) form.

A modest high tea in hall is also provided (disparagingly known as "doorsteps and dishwater"), but most of the boys prefer to make their own arrangements in their studies, funds permitting.

The exceptional volume of material produced by Hamilton over his writing career allowed both characters and locations to be developed in great depth.

Observations of contemporary life and satire are found in Hamilton's work, and he frequently uses his characters as mouthpieces to make telling ironic points:[4] The old bounder's unemployed," said Bunter.

I remember, last evening of the holidays, seeing my pater sitting in his armchair, sipping his port, and saying it was all due to slacking and drink.In particular, he had little respect for professions or pretensions, and politicians, lawyers and stockbrokers are regularly at the sharp end of his cynical prose.

[5] Time is frozen in the Greyfriars stories; although the reader sees the passing of the seasons, the characters' ages do not change and the students remain in the same year groups.

Orwell described Hamilton's style as easily imitated (to facilitate substitute writers), plagiarist, and largely comprising shallow right wing content.

A rosy-cheeked boy of fourteen in posh tailor-made clothes is sitting down to tea in your study on the Remove passage, after an exciting game of football which was won by an odd goal in the last half-minute.

Over in Europe the comic foreigners are jabbering and gesticulating; but the grim grey battleships of the British Fleet are steaming up the Channel, and at the outposts of Empire the monocled Englishmen are holding the niggers at bay.

Lord Mauleverer has just got another fiver and we are settling down to a tremendous tea of sausages, sardines, crumpets, potted meat, jam and doughnuts.

After tea, we shall sit round the study fire having a good laugh at Billy Bunter and discussing the team for next week's match against Rookwood.

Over the years, Hamilton was ever ready to air unfashionable causes to his young audience, but did so in a way that did not attract controversy or jeopardise publication of his stories.

Anti-capitalism, early Socialism, the Suffragette movement and conscientious objectors during World War I all received sympathetic treatment in Hamilton's work.

[11] In an age when the word "nigger" was not yet regarded in the same pejorative sense that applies today, Hamilton's work consistently emphasised the offensive nature of the term from as early as 1922;[12] and his output even included unfashionable anti-British sentiments in stories set against the background of imperial India.

The extraordinary volume of output of Greyfriars stories inevitably meant that plotlines and themes were repeated, though usually involving different characters and novel twists.

Coker's younger cousin, Edgar Caffyn, one of the most unpleasant characters ever to appear in the stories, arrives at the school in 1935 (Magnets Nos.

Newcomer Otto van Tromp grievously injures Dr. Locke in an unscrupulous scheme to install his uncle, Mr. Brander, as the new headmaster of Greyfriars.

In this, the pair enlist the assistance of the debt-laden chairman of the Greyfriars governors, Sir Hilton Popper, who owes money to Brander.

The Remove rise up in his support and build a fortified camp on Popper Island, which they successfully defend against a number of assaults by the prefects and other seniors.

Fifth form master Mr Prout takes over as temporary headmaster and appoints the bullying Gerald Loder as Head Prefect; as a result, a tyrannical regime develops at the school.

After Dr Locke is again incapacitated in 1937, the temporary headmastership passes this time to Mr Hacker, unpopular Master of the Shell, who is supported by Sixth form bully Arthur Carne.

The resultant tyranny again prompts the Remove to fight back; this time, they march out of the school and barricade themselves in the tuckshop (Magnets Nos.

960 to 970) the juniors travel to Bhanipur with Colonel Wharton to ensure Hurree Singh's throne is kept safe against the machinations of foreign spies.

1277 to 1284) follows the adventures of Billy Bunter, accompanied by Lord Mauleverer and the Famous Five, across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to the North African deserts (a locale previously visited in the Sahara series of 1925).

The China Series of 1930 begins with the Remove junior, Wun Lung, menaced by the distant Chinese mandarin Tang Wang.

The author draws a vivid picture of a very different China ruled by Mandarins – a colourful land rich in history and ancient customs.