The Girls' Crystal was first published in October 1935 by the Amalgamated Press as the Crystal for issues 1-9, continuing as a story paper until the mid '50's when it was transformed into a comic. It usually had 4 or 5 varied stories rotating within which aimed at girls of various ages, one of the main attractions being the Merrymakers series by Daphne Grayson which ran for years. Another major attraction was the Noel Raymond series of detective stories written by "Peter Langley" (Ronald Fleming) which also ran for years albeit more sporadically. It was unusual on 3 points: first the lead character was a male in a girls paper full of girl heroines, secondly Fleming used a male pseudonym, almost unheard of in the girls papers, and thirdly - quite often the reader didn't know who the guilty party was until the very end! Over the years from 1935 the youthful and debonair Noel solved a large number of baffling cases - about 475 plus many reprints, from 1945 (after Fleming had returned from wartime RAF duty) he was nearly always helped/hindered by his young niece June Gaynor. The tales were usually very short - "longer" tales were introduced after WW2, were never heavy and often with wildly implausible plots, stereotypes galore but usually made for entertaining and pleasant reading. In the course of a story stifled sobs, hoarse cries and Noel's grim smile would be constantly mentioned - but anything less dramatic was not to be expected by the audience in Noel and June's world. There was never much room for pictures and all the artists used remained anonymous, but apart from the first and the last artists the pictures nicely complemented the stories. Fleming had plenty of other irons in the AP fire and wrote for it until at least 1963 totalling 38 years service, but sadly the Noel Raymond saga came to an end in story form in May 1951. The following table lists only the issues featuring Noel Raymond stories. You can view the front covers of a few other issues here.

For the January 1994 Collectors' Digest Dennis Bird wrote an article providing some background to Ronald Fleming - you can read it here.

A number of stories were reprinted in the Schoolgirls' Own Library and the Girls' Crystal Annual.

Some issues also carried stories by Enid Boyten. This authors real name was Horace E. Boyten: In 1953 Enid Blyton’s solicitors wrote to R. T. Eves then editor of the Girls’ Crystal complaining of the similarity in names and suggesting the AP was cashing in on EB’s success. Eves strongly refuted the charge but wrote that HEB had reluctantly agreed not to use the nom de plume in future, but use “Hilda Boyten” instead. He apparently decided to use the name Helen Crawford from 1953 though.

Thanks to Gary for the introduction and the list of issues based on the works of the late Dennis Bird.

A few issues are now available for download. Scroll down the issue list to find them.

26/10/1935