Charles Hamilton’s autobiography, “The Autobiography of Frank Richards,” has a third-person narrator, who may not be Charles Hamilton or Frank Richards.

As previously noted, “Frank Richards” was the best-known of Charles Hamilton’s twenty-eight pen names. I have just started to read Hamilton’s autobiography, and so far, it is unclear who the narrator is. He says:

“This is the Autobiography of Frank Richards: ipso facto that of Martin Clifford, Owen Conquest, and Charles Hamilton…Charles became so accustomed to the name of Frank Richards, that it grew to seem to him like his own. Since he has used that name, he has thought of himself more as Frank than as Charles: though undoubtedly he began as Charles in the earlier days…

“My readers will observe that these memoirs are written chiefly in the third person. Frank…dislikes a page spotted about with aggressive personal pronouns…He is still rather a diffident chap” (1, p. 18).

And the first three chapters (pp. 7-23) are, indeed, about Frank Richards, and are mostly in third person. For example, the first two sentences and first page say:

“Frank Richards, at seventeen, was at a loose end. He was in the perplexing state of not knowing what he was going to do…

“He wanted to be…an author…And in fact he did write…dating from the age of seven…” (1, p. 7).

Note: In multiple personality, the first alternate personalities arise to cope with childhood trauma. Here, one of the writing personalities, Frank Richards, appears to have originated when Charles Hamilton was seven, the year his father died of tuberculosis.

Now, although the narration is, as quoted above, “chiefly in the third person,” there are lapses; for example, at the bottom of the first page, referring to the writer’s first publisher: “Mr M. was a publisher and printer — I rather think that he was a big printer and a small publisher” (1, p. 7-8).

And above, in the very explanation quoted about why the third person will be used, there is “My readers.” And on the very next page (1, p. 19), there are one “me,” two “my,” and two “I.”

Why this inconsistency and self-contradiction? If Frank is so “diffident” (an adjective that is repeatedly applied to Frank by the narrator), and, because he is diffident, prefers to avoid “aggressive personal pronouns” like “me,” “my,” and “I,” why does he contradict himself, blatantly?

It appears that although Frank may be “rather a diffident chap,” this narrator, whoever he is, is not. Moreover, as quoted above, this narrator lumps the author’s actual name, Charles Hamilton, together with the pen names; indeed, considers it inferior to the pen names, as a name that has outlived its usefulness and whose time has passed.

Samuel Clemens’s pen name, Mark Twain, was featured in the title of his autobiography, which was written in the first person by Mark Twain. Charles Hamilton’s autobiography goes one step further. Not only is the pen name Frank Richards featured in the title of the autobiography, but it is written in the third person, possibly by some other, unnamed, alternate personality.

1. [no author specified]. The Autobiography of Frank Richards. London, Charles Skilton Ltd, 1952.