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I remember, when I was very young in the 1960s, reading an already-tattered book called (I think) "C-for-Charlie". The plot was about a boy who discovered a Gremlin -- C-for-Charlie -- who used to fly on aircraft in the war, but was now out-of-work. C-for-Charlie offered the boy three wishes, but the boy, being smart, wished for an unlimited number of wishes. C-for-Charlie is outraged, and negotiated down to one wish per day. That's when the mayhem ensues!

I'm certain I remember reading the book, but I can find no sign of it now. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

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    You're not the only person to remember it. Google has a cached excerpt of text from tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0156655570030308 (subscription-based article) that reads "Gremlin-officer C for Charlie granting three wishes and hence a sequence of amazing adventures to the 12 year old hero, Tim." Looks like they might be saying it's in a book titled Books for Backwards Readers?
    – Sean Duggan
    Commented Aug 13 at 18:11
  • If someone has academic article access, say through their university, we may be able to puzzle it out.
    – Sean Duggan
    Commented Aug 13 at 18:14
  • Rereading it, it seems more likely that Books for Backwards Readers is just the name of their column... unfortunately, the story in question looks to be buried a bit deeper in the paid material.
    – Sean Duggan
    Commented Aug 13 at 19:12
  • More people searching for the book here: librarything.com/topic/104303
    – Showsni
    Commented Aug 14 at 0:09
  • As it has been established that the book is called "Hammond's Hard Lines" by Skelton Kuppord, it can be read / downloaded for free from archive.org.
    – Ayto_John
    Commented Aug 14 at 14:50

1 Answer 1

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Phew. Trying to get Google to spit out a full version of the cache is like pulling teeth; but by changing words one by one I was gradually able to get it to reveal the rest of the cache Sean Duggan found, and hence find the title of the book: Hammond's Hard Lines, by Skelton Cuppord/Kuppord. (I guess that author name has to be a joke). The full extract was:

"HAMMOND'S HARD LINES" by S. Koppord is a new volume in the "Life and Adventure Series". This is a fairy story up to date with the supernatural represented by the person of Gremlin-officer C for Charlie granting three wishes and hence a sequence of amazing adventures to the 12 year old hero, Tim Hammond. With this character, our older backward readers will have no trouble at all in identifying themselves. The action of the book is rapid, the situation in which Tim finds himself both amusing and for the young reader at any rate full of suspense. Vocabulary burden is not heavy, sentence structure is simple. Like the other books in the series, it will appeal to children up to 16 years of age who have attained a reading level of 8 to 9 years.

Searching for the book online confirms the name of the fairy gremlin in question: enter image description here

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  • Congrats on finding that! It does seem like it may be a bit of an obscure book.
    – Sean Duggan
    Commented Aug 14 at 12:06
  • I have requested a copy via ILL. We'll see if they have a copy in the system...
    – Sean Duggan
    Commented Aug 14 at 14:19
  • Brilliant, thanks. That's the edition I remembered.
    – Jules May
    Commented Aug 14 at 16:49
  • I'm not sure that "Skelton Cuppord" was a joke, but it was certainly a pseudonym. See John Adams
    – Jules May
    Commented Aug 14 at 20:34
  • Ah, yes, certainly a pseudonym, with the joke being that it sounds like "skeleton cupboard". Given the different editions others have found, it looks like maybe John Adams wrote the original featuring Tom Hammond and the fairy Peaseblossom, and it was later updated with Tim Hammond and the gremlin C is for Charlie, though they kept the same pseudonym for the author (or perhaps the "Cuppord" rather than "Kuppord" indicates the new version?)
    – Showsni
    Commented Aug 14 at 23:48

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