The Famous Five facts for kids
First edition cover of the first book in the series Five on a Treasure Island
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| Author | Enid Blyton |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
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| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Published | 1942—62 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| No. of books | 21 |
The Famous Five is a series of children's adventure novels and short stories written by English 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, George and their dog Timmy.
The vast majority of the stories take place in the children's school holidays. Each time they meet they get caught up in an adventure, often involving criminals or lost treasure. Sometimes the scene is set close to George's family home at Kirrin Cottage, such as the picturesque Kirrin Island, owned by George and her family in Kirrin Bay. George's own home and various other houses the children visit or stay in are hundreds of years old and often contain secret passages or smugglers' tunnels.
In some books the children go camping in the countryside, on a hike or holiday together elsewhere. However, the settings 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 an outdoor life of picnics, bicycle trips and swimming.
Blyton intended to write only six or eight books in the series, but owing to their high sales and immense commercial success she went on to write twenty-one full-length Famous Five novels, as well as a number of other series in similar style following groups of children discovering crime on holiday. By the end of 1953, more than six million copies had been sold. Today, more than two million copies of the books are sold each year, making them one of the best-selling series for children ever written, with sales totalling over a hundred million. All the novels have been adapted for television, and several have been adapted as films in various countries.
Blyton's publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, first used the term "The Famous Five" in 1951, after nine books in the series had been published. Before this, the series was referred to as The 'Fives' Books.
Contents
Characters
The Five
- Julian is the oldest of the five, cousin to George and elder brother to Dick and Anne. He is tall, strong and intelligent as well as caring, responsible and kind. His cleverness and reliability are often noted by Aunt Fanny. He is the leader of the group and is very protective towards Anne and sometimes, to her frustration, towards George. Julian is the most mature of the group but, although well-meaning, his manner can at times come over as overbearing, pompous or priggish. At the start of the series, Julian is 12 years old. Over time, he reaches his goal of fully maturing into a young adult.
- Dick has a cheeky sense of humour, but is also dependable and kind in nature. He is the same age as his cousin George, 1 year younger than his brother Julian and a year older than his sister Anne – eleven at the start of the series. Though inclined to tease his sister at times, Dick is, like Julian, very caring towards Anne and does his best to keep her cheered up when she gets upset. He had a heroic role in Five on a Treasure Island. He uses his wits and saves the five in many adventures but probably has the least clearly-drawn character of the four cousins.
- George is a tomboy, who demands that people call her George instead of Georgina; she cuts her hair very short and dresses like a boy. She is headstrong and courageous by nature and, like her father, scientist Quentin Kirrin, has a hot and fiery temper. Introduced to the other characters in the first book, she later attends a boarding school with Anne where the teachers also agree to call her 'George'. Blyton eventually revealed that the character was based on herself. It is notable that the chief protagonist of the Malory Towers stories also possessed a fiery temper as a defining character trait. George has a loyal dog named Timmy who would do anything for her. She often gets cross when anyone calls her by her birth name or makes fun of Timmy, and she loves it when somebody calls her George or mistakes her for a boy. In Five Get into a Fix, old Mrs Janes mistakes her for a boy: even though Julian had told her that she was a girl, she later forgets this. George sometimes takes this to the point of asking that her name be prefixed with Master instead of Miss. Various references have been made to what meaning should be read into this – for instance "I remember reading in my first Famous Five book about a girl called Master George. What a puzzle and thrill. She claims to never tell lies as that is cowardly."
- Anne is the youngest in the group, and generally takes care of the domestic duties during the Five's various camping holidays. As the youngest, she is more likely than the others to be frightened, and does not really enjoy the adventures as much as the others. She is ten years old in the first book of the series. She sometimes lets her tongue run away with her, but ultimately she is as brave and resourceful as the others. She likes doing the domestic things such as planning, organising and preparing meals, and keeping where they are staying clean and tidy, be it a cave, house, tent or caravan. In Smuggler's Top it is suggested she is claustrophobic, as she is frightened of enclosed spaces, which remind her of bad dreams. But the adventures invariably lead the five into tunnels, down wells, and into dungeons and other enclosed spaces, demonstrating how brave she really is.
- Timothy Alias Timmy is George's faithful dog. He is a large, brown mongrel with a long tail. George adopted him after finding him abandoned on the moors as a puppy. He is very friendly; he is clever, affectionate and loyal to the children and to George in particular; he provides physical protection for them many times. Timmy's presence is frequently given as the reason the children's parents allow them to wander unsupervised. George adores Timmy and thinks that he is the best dog in the world, and often becomes furious when people insult or threaten him. This is shown in 'Five On A Secret Trail' when she runs away from home with Timmy because he was being teased as he was forced to wear a cardboard collar. In the first book of the series, George's parents have forbidden her to keep Timmy, and she is forced to hide him with a fisher boy in the village. After the end of the Five's first adventure, her parents relent and she is allowed to keep him in the house and also take him with her to boarding school. It is a notable feature of the stories that Timmy's thoughts and feelings are frequently described.
Friends the Five meet
- Alf, the fisherboy, appears in some of the books set in Kirrin Cottage. In the first book, after George's parents forbid her to keep the dog, Alf keeps Timmy for her. Timmy adores Alf. Alf also looks after George's boat. In later books Alf only looks after George's boat, as George's parents let Timmy stay in the house. Alf also appears as James of the same background.
- Jo, the ragamuffin girl, clever but wild, joins the Five on three adventures near the end of the series. She is approximately the same age as the children and is a tomboy like George. Her parents were in the circus, but her mother died and her father was imprisoned for theft. She admires Dick and thinks the world of him.
- Joanna/Joan is the housekeeper at George's house. She is an extremely kind woman who is often present at Kirrin Cottage when Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny go off somewhere. All the four cousins are extremely attached to her. Joanna contracts scarlet fever in the last book. She is sometimes referred to as Joan in Blyton's Famous Five short stories like Five Have a Puzzling Time and other stories.
- Tinker appears in two books. He has a habit of imitating cars (which drives his father mad) and has a pet monkey called Mischief. His father is also a scientist who is Uncle Quentin's friend.
- Spiky is a friend of Jo's who works in the circus. The Five meet in him in the 14th book in the series, Five Have Plenty of Fun.
- Wilfred meets the Five in the book Five Have a Mystery to Solve. He has an unexplainable ability of attracting animals.
Grown-ups in the Famous Five
- Aunt Fanny is George's mother, and aunt to Dick, Julian 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. She is a very kind and easy-going woman, and shows considerable patience with her husband over his short temper and absent-mindedness.
- Uncle 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 the children on school holidays, but is nevertheless a loving and caring husband, father and uncle, and is extremely proud of his daughter. He is also inclined to be very absent-minded, as he finds it hard to switch off from his work and readjust to everyday life. Despite his fame as a scientist, his work does not earn him much money. In the first book of the series, it is established that he is brother to the father of Julian, Dick and Anne.
- Julian, Dick and Anne's mother is a very nice woman. In Five Go Off In a Caravan, she persuades the children's father to let them travel in the caravan. She's referred to as Mrs. Barnard in Five Get Into a Fix.
- Mr. Roland is introduced in the second book. He is a tutor, and coaches the Five during the holidays. He then steals Uncle Quentin's important papers, but is caught by the Five.
- Lucas appears in Five Have a Mystery to Solve.
Critical discussion
Blyton was a nature writer early in her career, and the books are strongly atmospheric, with a detailed but idealised presentation of the rural landscape. The books present children exploring this landscape without parental supervision as natural and normal. Pete Cash of the English Association has noted that the children "are allowed to go off on their own to an extent that today would contravene the Child Protection Act (1999) and interest Social Services."
The books are written in a nostalgic style even for the time they were written, avoiding reference to specific political events or technological developments. Cash noted that the characters do not watch television apart from one appearance in 1947, or even make much use of radios, despite George's father's work presumably involving advanced technology.
The books have been criticised for being repetitive, with repeated use of stock elements such as obnoxious, unfriendly people who turn out to be criminals and the discovery of a secret passageway. Blyton wrote rapidly and could finish a book in a week, which meant that unlike other book series of the period, such as Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys, she was able to maintain control of her creations and write all the stories in a series herself.
The treatment of girls in the books provides a contrast, with Anne, the youngest and most fragile character, a contrast to the brash and headstrong George.
Floating timeline
The seemingly perpetual youth of the Famous Five, who experience a world of apparently endless holidays while not ageing significantly, is known as a floating timeline. Floating timelines allow for an episodic series with no defined end-point, but at the expense of losing a sense of the characters growing up. J. K. Rowling commented of her Harry Potter series that she deliberately intended to avoid this in her writing: "in book four the hormones are going to kick in – I don't want him stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence like poor Julian in the Famous Five!"
Film and television adaptations
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Films
The Children's Film Foundation made two films based on Famous Five books: Five on a Treasure Island, in 1957, and Five Have a Mystery to Solve, in 1964.
Two of the Famous Five stories by Enid Blyton have been filmed by Danish director Katrine Hedman. The cast consisted of Danish actors and were originally released in Danish. Ove Sprogøe stars as Uncle Quentin. The movies are: De fem og spionerne (Five and the Spies) (1969) and De 5 i fedtefadet (Famous Five Get in Trouble) (1970).
All four of the films have been released on DVD in their respective countries.
In Germany, a series of movies have been released:
- Fünf Freunde (2012, based on Five on Kirrin Island Again, with Marcus Harris in a small role)
- Fünf Freunde 2 (2013, based on Five Get into Trouble)
- Fünf Freunde 3 (2014, based on Five on a Treasure Island and Five Fall into Adventure)
- Fünf Freunde 4 (2015)
- Fünf Freunde und das Tal der Dinosaurier (2018, literally "Five Friends and the Valley of Dinosaurs")
Television
1978–79 series
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The Famous Five television series was produced by Southern Television and Portman Productions for ITV in the UK, in 26 episodes of thirty minutes (including time for advertisements). It starred Michele Gallagher as Georgina, Marcus Harris as Julian, Jennifer Thanisch as Anne, Gary Russell as Dick, Toddy Woodgate as Timmy, Michael Hinz as Uncle Quentin and Sue Best as Aunt Fanny. It also starred Ronald Fraser, John Carson, Patrick Troughton, James Villiers, Cyril Luckham and Brian Glover. The screenplays were written by Gloria Tors, Gail Renard, Richard Carpenter and Richard Sparks. The episodes were directed by Peter Duffell, Don Leaver, James Gatward and Mike Connor. The series was produced by Don Leaver and James Gatward. Most of the outdoor filming was done in the New Forest and parts of Dorset and Devon.The series was set in the present day, fifteen years after Blyton's last novel in the series.
Of the original 21 novels, three were not adapted for this series; Five on a Treasure Island and Five Have a Mystery to Solve because the Children's Film Foundation still own the film and TV rights to the books, while Five Have Plenty of Fun did not fit in the production schedule. Due to the success of the series, Southern Television were keen to make another season of episodes, but the Enid Blyton estate forbade them to create original stories.
The 1978 series was originally released on video by Portman Productions with reasonable regularity between 1983 and 1999, many of which are still easy to find second-hand, although the sound and picture quality is not always what it could be. A four-disc DVD collection, containing 23 of the 26 episodes produced for the 1978 series (and two episodes from the 1996 series) was released in region 4 (Australia and New Zealand) in 2005. The box and disc art identify it as a release of the 1996 series. (The distributor had licensed the 1996 series, but due to an administrative glitch was supplied with master tapes and artwork for the 1978 series.) The error was corrected in a later release.
A seven-DVD set containing the entire series and extensive bonus material was released in October 2010 in Germany by Koch Media; although there was an option to choose either the original English or German dubbed versions, the English version had non-removable German subtitles across the bottom of the screen on every episode. The same company released the DVD set in the UK (without the non-removable subtitles) on 25 June 2012.
A four DVD set containing all 26 episodes, without additional content, was released for region 4 (Australia and New Zealand) in late 2011, as Enid Blyton's The Famous Five: The Complete Collection. (The Finnish punk band Widows (of Helsinki) made three different cover versions of the theme song, the first in early 1979, as did the Irish indie outfit Fleur, in 1996.)
1995 series
A later series, The Famous Five, initiated by Victor Glynn of Portman Zenith was aired first in 1995, a co-production between a number of companies including Tyne Tees Television, HTV, Zenith North and the German channel ZDF. Unlike the previous TV series, this set the stories in the 1950s, around when they were written. It dramatised all the original books. Of the juvenile actors the best known is probably Jemima Rooper, who played George. Julian was portrayed by Marco Williamson, Dick by Paul Child, and Anne by Laura Petela. In this series, because of the slang meaning of the word fanny, Aunt Fanny, played by Mary Waterhouse, was known as Aunt Frances. (In some but not all recent reprints of the book, the character has been re-christened Aunt Franny.)
The 1995 series was released in its entirety on VHS video. A three-disc DVD collection, containing 13 of the 26 episodes of the 1995 series, was released in Australia and New Zealand in 2005, and is marked "Revised Edition" to avoid confusion with the previous release of the 1979 series with 1995 artwork. Other episodes have reportedly been released on DVD in Europe, but only the adaptation of Five on a Treasure Island was released on DVD in the UK.
Famous 5: On the Case
A new Famous Five animated TV series began airing in 2008. Famous 5: On the Case is set in modern times and features the children of the original Famous Five: Max (the son of Julian and Brandine), Dylan (son of Dick and Michelle), Jo (daughter of George and Ravi – a tomboy who, like her mother, prefers a shorter name to her given name Jyoti) and Allie (daughter of Anne and John). It has not been stated whether their dog is a descendant of Timmy. The new series was first announced in 2005, and is a co-production of Chorion (which currently owns all Famous Five rights) and Marathon, in association with France 3 and The Disney Channel. Disney confirmed their involvement in December 2006. Stories were developed by Douglas Tuber and Tim Maile, who have previously written for Lizzie McGuire. Chorion claims on its website that "these new programmes will remain faithful to the themes of mystery and adventure central to Enid Blyton's classic series of books." A total of 26 episodes, each 22 minutes long, were produced.
2023 series
On 26 June 2023, the BBC announced that filming has begun on a new adaptation of The Famous Five, in co-production with the German channel ZDF. The series will comprise three episodes, each 90 minutes long, and will aim to bring the stories to a "progressive new audience". The series creator is Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn.
Other adaptations
Audio dramas
Hodder Headline produced in the late 1990s audio dramas in English, which were published on audio cassette and CD. All 21 episodes of the original books were dramatised.
The 21 original stories by Enid Blyton have been released in the 1970s as Fünf Freunde audio dramas in Germany as well. The speakers were the German dubbing artists for Gallagher, Thanisch, Russell and Harris, the leads of the first television series.
For the sequels (not written by Blyton and decidedly more "modern" action-oriented stories) the speakers were replaced by younger ones, because it was felt that they sounded too mature. In addition to the original Blyton books, another 110+ stories have subsequently been released and published as radio plays and more than 30 books different from the radioplays in Germany. They are based on the original characters, but written by various German writers.
Theatre
A 1997 musical was made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Enid Blyton's birth with the title The Famous Five and later released on DVD as The Famous Five – Smuggler's Gold – The Musical.
Principal actors: Elizabeth Marsland, Lyndon Ogbourne, Matthew Johnson, Vicky Taylor, Jon Lee, Director: Roz Storey and also in the five
A brand new musical adaptation was premièred at the Tabard Theatre on 8 December 2009 and played until 10 January 2010.
Gamebooks
Two sets of gamebooks in a Choose Your Own Adventure style have been published. These books involve reading small sections of print and being given two or more options to follow, with a different page number for each option. The first series of these, written by Stephen Thraves, featured stories loosely based on the original books. They were issued in plastic wallets with accessories such as maps, dice and codebooks. The gamebooks were titled as follows:
- The Wreckers' Tower Game, based on Five Go Down to the Sea
- The Haunted Railway Game, based on Five Go Off to Camp
- The Whispering Island Game, based on Five Have a Mystery to Solve
- The Sinister Lake Game, based on Five On a Hike Together
- The Wailing Lighthouse Game, based on Five Go to Demon's Rocks
- The Secret Airfield Game, based on Five Go to Billycock Hill
- The Shuddering Mountain Game, based on Five Get into a Fix
- The Missing Scientist Game, based on Five Have a Wonderful Time
The second series, written by Mary Danby, was entitled "The Famous Five and You". These consisted of abridged versions of the original text, with additional text for the alternative story routes. The books in this series were based on the first six original Famous Five books:
- The Famous Five and You Search for Treasure!
- The Famous Five and You Find Adventure!
- The Famous Five and You Run Away!
- The Famous Five and You Search for Smugglers!
- The Famous Five and You Take Off!
- The Famous Five and You Underground!
Comics
A weekly comic strip based on the 1978 television series was published in Look-in magazine from 1978 to 1980.
Six comic albums drawn by Bernard Dufossé and scripted by Serge Rosenzweig and Rafael Carlo Marcello were released in France between 1982 and 1986, under the title Le Club des Cinq. Most of comic books in the series are based on Famous Five books created by Claude Voilier. Books were released by Hachette Livre. The first three of these volumes have also been released in English, under the name Famous Five. The titles included "Famous Five and the Golden Galleon" (which featured a sunken ship that was laden with gold with the Five fending off villains seeking to make off with the gold, "Famous Five and the Treasure of the Templars", where it transpires that Kirrin Castle is actually a Templar Castle that houses their hidden treasure which the Five ultimately secure with the help of members of the order, and "Famous Five and the Inca God" which was set in an antiquities museum and dealt with the theft of an Incan artefact.
Beginning in September 1985 a series of monthly Comic Magazine titles Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine were published. Each issue published a full length illustrative comic book story adapted from Famous 5 Novels. The series came to end in the 1990s.
See also
In Spanish: Los Cinco (serie) para niños
