The Famous Five (series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Famous Five (series) -

The Famous Five (series)
Author	Enid Blyton
Country	UK
Language	English
Genre(s)	Mystery, Adventure
Publisher	Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date	1942–1963
Media type	Print (hardcover andpaperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-340-79614-6(Hodder)
OCLC Number	46332627

The Famous Five is the name of a series of children's novels written by British author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942.

The novels feature the adventures of a group of young children — Julian, Dick, Anne and Georgina (George) — and their dog Timmy. Blyton created several similar groups for her detective series, including The Secret Seven, The Adventurous Four (not to be confused with The Adventure Series) and Five Find-Outers, but the Famous Five is the best-known and most popular of these.

Blyton only intended to write about 6 to 8 books in the series but, owing to their high sales and immense commercial success, she went on to write 21 full-length Famous Five novels. By the end of 1953, more than 6 million copies of these books had been printed and sold. Today, more than two million copies of the books are sold each year, making them one of the biggest-selling series for children ever written. Over a hundred million books have been sold.^[1] Nearly all of the novels have subsequently been adapted for television.

Chorion, who now own the rights to Blyton's books and characters, announced in early 2008 that the Famous Five would return in the Famous Five's Survival Guide, a new book in which the grown-up characters revisit a case they failed to solve in their childhood.^[2][3]

Contents [hide] 1 Overview 2 Characters 3 Bibliography 3.1 Original novels 3.2 Other book series 3.2.1 Claude Voilier 3.2.2 Sarah Bosse 4 Film and Television Adaptations 4.1 Films 4.2 Television 4.2.1 1978 series 4.2.2 1996 series 4.2.3 Famous 5: On the Case 4.2.4 Reunion series 5 Other Adaptations 5.1 Audio dramas 5.2 Theatre 5.3 Gamebooks 5.4 Video games 5.5 Comic books 6 Parodies 7 The Famous Five Effect 8 References 9 External links

[edit]Overview

Three of the children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are brothers and sister. During their holidays, they are regularly sent to the seaside town of Kirrin to stay with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin, whose daughter, Georgina, is a tomboy who insists on being called George. George owns a large mongrel dog, Timmy, who is very much part of the group and a character in his own right. Timmy accompanies the four children on every adventure.

The stories always take place in the children's school holidays when they return from their respective boarding schools. Every time they meet, they get caught up in an adventure, the location of which varies from book to book. Sometimes the scene is set close to George's family home at Kirrin Cottage in Cornwall: "Kirrin Island", a picturesque island owned by George and her family in Kirrin Bay, for example, presents many opportunities for adventure. George's own home and various other houses the children visit or stay in are hundreds of years old, and often contain secret passages orsmugglers' tunnels. In some books, the children go camping in the countryside, on a hike or holiday together elsewhere. The settings, however, are almost always rural and enable the children to discover the simple joys of cottages, islands, the English and Welsh countryside and sea shores, as well as the adventures, picnics, lemonade, bicycle trips, home-made food, and lashings of ginger beer.

In some of the books, the four children and Timmy are joined by other children. Some of these newcomers start off being disliked by the four children including the gypsy girl Jo, and Henrietta, another tomboy; and some of them are friends from the start, including Sooty and Tinker, both sons of Uncle Quentin's scientist friends.

Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl she had once known: in her later life, she admitted that the girl was herself^{[citation needed]}.

Despite there being 21 books, each taking place in the children's successive school holidays, the four do not age more than a few years during the course of the series.

[edit]Characters

• Julian : Julian is the eldest of the five, cousin to George and older brother to Dick and Anne. Tall, strong and intelligent as well as caring, responsible and kind but sometimes a bit strict. He is the leader of the group. He is very protective and possessive of Anne. At the start of the series, Julian is 12 years old; the final book does not state how much the children have aged, but if you count the years in which the series run, then he will be 17. He showed his adolescence in Five On A Hike Together

• Dick : Dick has a cheeky sense of humour, but is also dependable and kind in nature. He is the same age as his cousin George, a year younger than his brother Julian and older than his sister Anne - 11 at the start of the series and 16 at the end. Dick is very caring of Anne and does his best to keep her cheered up when she gets upset. He also has a good gymnastic ability which helps the five in numerous dilemmas. He had a heroic role in Five On A Treasure Island. He also uses his wits in many adventures.

• Anne : Anne is the youngest in the group, and generally takes care of their domestic duties during the Five's various camping holidays. She is more likely than the others to become frightened and famously dislikes the adventures the Five constantly encounter. She is 10 years old in the first book of the series and 15 in the last. She is known to be very forgetful sometimes and she does let her tongue run away with her. In Five have a mystery to solve, she acted as a brave and responsible person. She likes to play "House Wife".In Smuggler's Top she is shown to be claustrophobic since she is frightened of encroached spaces since it reminds her of bad dreams she has.

• George (Georgina) : Georgina is a tomboy and insists that people call her George. With her short hair and boy's clothes she is often mistaken for a boy, which pleases her enormously. Like her father, Quentin, George has a fiery temper. She is fierce, headstrong and very loyal to those she loves. She is sometimes extremely unmanagable and causes trouble to her mother as well as her cousins. She is very possessive of Timmy, her dog. George is cousin to siblings Julian, Dick and Anne and is aged 11 at the start of the series and 16 at the end. In Five Have Plenty of Fun, Five Fall Into Adventure, and Five Go To Mystery Moor there were tomboys like her.

• Timothy (Timmy or Tim): Timmy, sometimes called Tim, is George's dog. Timmy is the archetypal loyal mongrel — very clever, affectionate and loyal to the Five and to George in particular; he provides physical protection for the children on multiple occasions. George adores Timmy and thinks that he is the best dog in the world. In the first book of the series, George's parents have forbidden her to keep Timmy and George is forced to hide him with a friend in the village. After the end of the Five's first adventure, her parents relent and she is allowed to keep him.

• Jo, the gypsy girl. Jo, clever but wild, joins the Five on several adventures and is especially friendly towards Dick. She is approximately the same age as the children. She is a tomboy, like George. Her mother and father were in the circus before being imprisoned for theft.

• Aunt Fanny: Fanny is George's mother, and aunt to Dick, Julian and Anne. Called Aunt Fanny by Julian, Dick and Anne, she is married to Uncle Quentin, and is, through most of Blyton's Famous Five novels, the principal maternal figure in the lives of the children. (Julian, Dick and Anne's parents only make brief appearances in a handful of the novels).

• Uncle Quentin : Quentin is George's father, and a world-famous scientist, who is kidnapped or held hostage in several of the children's adventures. He possesses a quick temper and has little tolerance for children on school holidays, but is nevertheless not as heartless as he may at first seem. In the first book of the series, it is established that he is the brother of Julian, Dick and Anne's father.

The characters, as is usual in Blyton's fiction, are outlined with very few words, and there is very limited description of scenes, but this style and the fast pace of the writing keeps children's attention and is seen by enthusiasts as fuelling their imagination and encouraging them to think for themselves. Blyton's characterisation, however, has also been much criticised as being stereotyped and encouraging sexist attitudes; and the books have as a result been extensively parodied.

[edit]Bibliography

[edit]Original novels

Enid Blyton wrote 21 Famous Five books; in chronological order they are:

1. Five on a Treasure Island (1942)
2. Five Go Adventuring Again (1943)
3. Five Run Away Together (1944)
4. Five Go to Smuggler's Top (1945)
5. Five Go Off in a Caravan (1946)
6. Five on Kirrin Island Again (1947)
7. Five Go Off to Camp (1948)
8. Five Get Into Trouble (1949)
9. Five Fall Into Adventure (1950)
10. Five on a Hike Together (1951)
11. Five Have a Wonderful Time (1952)
12. Five Go Down To The Sea (1953)
13. Five Go To Mystery Moor (1954)
14. Five Have Plenty Of Fun (1955)
15. Five on a Secret Trail (1956)
16. Five Go to Billycock Hill (1957)
17. Five Get Into a Fix (1958)
18. Five on Finniston Farm (1959)
19. Five Go to Demon's Rocks (1960)
20. Five Have a Mystery To Solve (1961)
21. Five Are Together Again (1962)