"Billy Bunter's Christmas Party" by Frank Richards (a pen name for Charles Hamilton). The 5th novel in a series of 38, published between 1947 and 1965, about William George Bunter, known as the Fat Owl of the Remove, or Upper Fourth Form, who attends an English public school called Greyfriars. Set originally in 1908, in this book the series has been updated to the 1950s; but in many ways these post-war novels still retain characteristics of the Edwardian Age before the First World War. Hamilton had begun writing stories about Greyfriars School in 1908, for boys' magazines known affectionately as the "penny dreadfuls", as they in fact sold for a penny. The magazine tales were published from 1908 until 1940. After the Second War, the stories - following a brief hiatus - resumed in 1947, in this series of novels. In this, the 5th novel, published in 1949, Bunter invites some of his schoolmates to join him for Christmas at Tankerton Hall, the home of his rich Uncle Carter, promising them a wonderful Christmastime -- but neglecting to mention one or two drawbacks which he feels might put them off! On arrival, the chums of Greyfriars are dismayed to find that the drawbacks include the fact that the Hall's reputation of being haunted has driven away all the other guests...
