The Hotspur Book for Boys was a British annual published by DC Thomson that came out in September before the year on the cover, in time for being bought as Christmas presents by parents and grandparents, and forward dated so it wouldn't appear "old" when opened on Christmas Day. Sometimes bound in cardboard, sometimes in hardcover it included features and stories, the latter usually based on series running in the weekly comic. The original Hotspur was a text strip title, a format that had evolved in Britain out of Penny Dreadfuls and then "story papers" like The Strand, and the original series of Hotspur Book for Boys matched that format.
The first Hotspur Book for Boys was released in 1934, and an annual followed each year until the advent of World War II and resulting paper shortages caused the annuals to go into hiatus; after the annual released in 1940 (listed as 1941 below), the series skipped a year, returned in 1942 (listed as 1943 below), then vanished again until 1948 (listed as 1949 below), when paper shortages were finally easing post-war. However, this ninth Book for Boys proved to be the final release in the original run.
In 1959 Hotspur was restarted as a comic strip title, with the numbering resetting back to #1, and a few years later, in 1965, the Hotspur Book for Boys resumed annual publication. Twenty-nine annuals were released before the line again ended, in 1991.
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